High tech? High touch?

Probably 20 years ago, I remember listening to an interview with Jean Houston, Ph.D., scholar, philosopher, researcher, and author on human capacities.  She said something that has stuck with me ever since. Not stuck with me in the sense that if someone brought it up that I'd remember, but stuck with me in the sense that I ponder it...often...sometimes daily.

What she said that was so riveting to me was that over the course of human kind, any time there has been a major breakthrough in whatever the technology of the era was, there has been a parallel breakthrough in our ability to connect as human beings.  If I recall correctly, she talked about balancing "high tech," whatever "high tech" was at that time with "high touch." If she didn't say those words, that is what my brain did with what she said.

I have played with this idea for so long that I really don't recall if the next idea was hers or one that I came up with, but in my mind's eye, over the years I have seen the early technology breakthrough of fire being balanced with the human connection breakthrough of campfires and campfire stories. 

When I first heard Houston talk about this concept, she was talking about what was then the explosion of computer and internet technology, although at that time email was still pretty new.  She was questioning what the human/high-touch breakthrough would be to balance it.  This is what makes me ponder.  What is the balance?

I love my smartphone, and I wouldn't want to be without it.  Yet, as I've written before, the world seems to be drawn into one-on-one relationships with devices.  When we could be more connected than ever, we seem to be connected to technology rather than to other human beings.  I own that we can Skype with friends on the other side of the world as easily as vastly different time zones will allow.

When I recall lining up for a weekly call home on a single pay phone during my college days, reaching out to touch loved ones is definitely easier now, but when I've heard some of the drivel that substitutes for real conversation, I suspect that I made more connection in my once a week calls home than today's coeds do in thrice-daily calls with their mums.

At the same time, our technology has speeded life up to the extent that almost everyone I know feels like they are racing through life.  It takes weeks of advanced planning to get together for an afternoon or evening with my closest friends.  A more distant friend and I put a standing phone call on our calendars months ahead...and even then, we sometimes miss it. 

While I fully realize that nostalgia for other times often reflects one-sided memories, and we forget how things really were, I have completely been bitten by a recent Chinet commercial during which a woman is able to slip back in time to a block party.  The lead up to the time travel is that "back then," people more often connected in homes than on home pages.  I really actually remember a time in my adult life when we got home at a reasonable time and could have a drink before or coffee after dinner with a neighbor.  Even spontaneous "Why-don't-you-drop-by-for-dinner?" invitations were not unheard of. 

Maybe what I wrestle with is the lack of spontaneity.  I loved the days when  I could decide after work that I wanted to call a friend for an unplanned dinner or movie.  But that is an aside. 

The real question is how to we make equivalent strides forward in deepening relationships that we have made in technology.  I really have an idea, and fifteen years ago I felt it was a coming reality.  I've written before about the ribbon of love that I believes connects all of humankind, heart to heart to heart.  I used to feel an openness to that...maybe even a readiness for it.  Yet, I almost feel like the attention to devices and the 24 x 7 news cycle has focused us on the negative side or life--what separates us rather than what brings us together.

Maybe asking what the high-touch breakthrough to balance the high-tech advances is the wrong question.  Perhaps the real question is how can we break through barriers to the potential of connecting through the ribbon of love.  That will be a breakthrough at least equal to the technology of the internet and connecting devices.