Wow! Sometimes I love the internet and sharing things with people around the world. I shared some of my Ireland pictures on my jigsaw puzzle app and got best picture 2 weeks in a row. I didn’t even realize it until later. Then today I suddenly realized I had 247 comments on the same puzzle in at least a dozen different languages!! I’m just blown away by that! I knew I loved the picture, but that so many others liked it too is really cool. (I’m so easily impressed, aren’t I?) This is the photo that has garnered so much interest.
In other news, I found out yesterday that I’m in the top 15% of read reviewers (8992 people) on Trip Advisor because of the places I reviewed while on our Ireland/Spain/England/France trip two years ago.
My point is, sometimes we get frustrated by how burdensome the internet can be and by how we seem, in some ways, to be more disconnected from people. For the first 30+ years of my life, though, I would only have connected with people I met personally or maybe a pen pal in another country through school or something. Now, we live in truly a more connected world. More people are traveling abroad. There are international online communities for nearly every subject or interest known to humankind, news is known almost instantly, and we make friends with people we’ve never met in person. Lastly, through something as trivial as a photo for a jigsaw puzzle, we can bring enjoyment to people we’ve never met and who don’t even share a common language with us.
I’m feeling more connected to the world at large in a positive way tonight than I ever have before. When I was a little girl, I think in the late 1960’s or 1970’s, there was a Coca-Cola commercial that came out on television where people from all over the world were holding hands and singing,
“I’d like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle doves
I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to hold it in my arms
And keep it company
I’d like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills
For peace through out the land
(That’s the song I hear)
I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony…”
That’s the way I feel tonight. Yes, I’m a peace, hope, and love gal all the way to the bone. I feel closer to that ideal than I have in a long, long time.
D. Elaine Wood-Lane
5/24/17
Sunshine Lane 