That was the catch cry from my youth (one of them anyway) – can’t remember who said it but I think of it every time I sit in front of my blog or my Facebook site.
I have always seen myself as a Luddite who is hopeless with technology, and I must admit I would much rather sew than play on a PC, but the thing I now realise is that I have always basically taught myself – unfortunately, not always very well! I have been blessed with a determined spirit and so I press on, albeit with much swearing, screaming and ranting. When the dog slinks out of the room with her tail down, I know I have lost the plot and need to ‘walk away’ and go make a cup of tea! (she slinks like that when I’m watching the footy too! I call it passion, others may say madness).
However, I am now seriously searching out information and determined to learn things that I always believed were out of my reach. It becomes demystified when someone explains it to you, or teaches you in a way that you can understand (unlike the ’12-year-old’ who works at a particular mobile phone shop. Isn’t there a law against minors working?) and I am finding it a lot of fun although sometimes frustrating.
I still can’t work out how I send messages to myself when I think I’m sending them to someone else! Who cares, practice makes perfect. The thing I do love about technology is the incredible range of information out there that can bring such a richness to our artwork and connect us to like-minded people. And lots of it is free. My next project is to learn how to use Google/gmail as it has so many fabulous tools that are free. I am working on a couple of joint projects and hope to set up files that we can both use at the same time. Alas, I will have to wait till my niece comes to visit.
I used to have an address book with “I can’t believe it I forgot to have children” on the front – when it comes to keeping up with technology, I can see I really have missed out!
Cath
Postscript: Amazing! Since writing the above, I was reading a magazine and saw an ad for a person doing workshops called ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ based on the book by Susan Jeffers! There you go, spooky.
Source image: Help Key by Petr Kratochvil
