There are many essential skills that are slowly fading away into the abyss of the 'old days' that I'm started to get frustrated with all things modern. For example, handwriting skills have basically become a lost art. Kids are learning to text, twitter, and email before they learn the proper form of handwriting.
Fine, you may argue that handwriting is not really that essential.
How many people out there have ever started a fire? Not talking about a fire caused by splashing cooking oil onto the stove while frying eggs, resulting in the kids running for their lives and the wife coming to the rescue (I speak from experience). I'm referring to an actual campfire with logs, matches, and that cool firestarter stuff. Not many, I'm guessing, because there simply is little need nowadays.
Damn you Modernity!
Also, what about the ability to (ahem) attend to your personal needs in an Eastern-style toilet? I'd say that ranks right up there with hunting, starting a fire, and talking to a coconut as skills you need to survive a FedEx plane crash.
Ever since we moved to Saudi Arabia, I can't tell you how many nightmares I've had to endure thanks to my children's misadventures in the flat toilets.
What am I talking about, forget them...I've had too many misadventures MYSELF!
Damn you Modernity!
And let's not forget about eating with your hands. My two older kids make a bigger mess when they eat with their hands than their 18 month old younger sister. Personally, I'm not too bad when it comes to eating with my hands, but I'm nowhere as skilled as my Saudi counterparts. When we get together and eat from a large plate of rice, they'll take a handful, smoothly squeeze it into a small ball, and pop it into their mouths. Then they'll look at me awkwardly contorting my hand and arm to get the rice into my mouth and sympathetically offer me a spoon.
Damn you Modernity!
Hmmm...what other possible reasons can I curse at Modernity?
WAW
3 days ago
14 comments:
Im with you on the toilets...hard enough to deal with on the average day...throw in 8 months of pregnancy and your talking feats of agility unknown to any MAN!!
I also sympathize with you over the hand eating thing...I believe if I ate only with my hand I would lose all the weight I needed(from the amount of food dropped and not actually eaten)...nuff said....sigh.
I can't compete the hand eating. I end up hungry and frustrated.
Handwriting: It's not just kids, but adults too. I find I can't sign my name like I used to 20 years ago, I'm so out of practice. And I used to think I had such a nice signature, too. ;)
Toilets: The tales I could tell about my misadventures with squat toilets would either be so gross (but funny) to read or we could keep this blog family friendly. ;) Let's just say that I use squat toilets only when absolutely necessary.
Hand-eating: De rigeur here in S'pore, not just by the Malays but the Indian community as well. I, however, always use my silverware with rice. ;) What makes hand-eating different here in SE Asia is that most rice eaten is not glutinous (as it is up in Korea when I lived there). So the rice doesn't stick together and becomes even more loose when curry is added. As a result, hands become very messy while eating here. (Sinks in restaurants for patrons washing their hands afterwards is very common.) What I found interesting when I first moved here was Milady and her family eating pizza with knife and fork; in the US, of course, pizza is eaten with the hands. So both of us went through a little bit of culture shock with the other's eating habits. ;)
Lol. true.
I always think that the more modern the world gets the more corrupt.
I mean if you look at the factories, when factories first came about they needed lots of workers and men were at war. Women actaully used to dress somewhat modest compared to today.
But then we needed women's right, and people just wanted more and more "freedom" and next thing ya know. we have today's society.
-The Muslim Kid-
AA-
@CoolRed, 8 months pregnant and having to deal with *that*? Ouch!
LOL @ losing weight
@Gess, I guess for you its 'thank God for modernity' or at least for utencils...lol
@JD, I forgot about the pizza eating thing...that's so funny cause I saw the same thing in Pakistan. We're using hands and everyone else is using utencils to eat the pizza...
And thanks for sparing us the gory details of your squatting exploits. :-)
@MuslimKid, interesting point...I wouldn't necessarily link the introduction of factories to women's clothing or their rights. I think that logic is a bit of a stretch.
However, I would suggest that mass production and its evil twin in advertising has led to a most unhealthy lifestyle of over-consumption.
not just handwriting, but speling too! and capitalization and over use of exclamation marks!!! drives me crazy... not to mention those annoying short abbreviated wrds...
:-D
modernity by itself is commendable, but it needs to be scrutinized in light of islamic rulings.if it was corrupt as "muslim kid" is writing we would still be in the stone age and riding camels.
Every single time, I read "Damn you Moriarty!!!", and I thought I was in a Sherlock Holmes book.
I think you are infatuated with the past. When our kids are hovering above hover-toilets when they are 43, they will look back and think, damn these new-fangled devices, I need to be one with nature and sit on a commode, that was really ruffin it!!
And who knows, maybe a hundred years back, those squatting on flat toilets thought to themslves, "damn you modernity!", when I was a youth, I would squat on a tree stump with a hole in it. THAT was ruffin it!
And we can go on and on, until you find yourself thinking of our forefathers who ... I shall not continue this line of thought.
AA-
@Haleem, since we're on the topic of pet peeves, how about those annoying sideways faces! :-D
@Anon, I think you read a bit too much into Muslim Kids comment. I don't think anyone is saying that all things modern are corrupt...as for me, I'm not making any judgment claims on modernity. Just pointing out some simple skills that have been forgotten as we beat down the doors of technology.
@Sophister, sure I may be infatuated with the past, but this post isn't about that. Using flat toilets or starting a campfire aren't about waxing poetically on the "good 'ol days" when wearing parachutes pants and rat tails were cool.
I'm talking about simple 'survival' skills that have been neglected and are sorely missed when the need arises....
You know, the irony of this "Damn you Modernity" thing is that while we do rely so heavily on "modernity," every now and then we're really tested (and I mean this in a literal way) in how well we can do things the old fashioned way. Example: Last week I took my GMAT test, a portion of which requires one to do fairly substantial math problems without the usage of any technology: no calculators, hand phones, nothing. As in you have to turn out your pants pockets to prove there's nothing in them before you can enter the test room. You use just the ability that's in your noggin.
So, as you work your way through the practice books and the exam itself, you begin to realize just how little you still remember from your primary and middle school math classes. :)
AA- JD,
"you begin to realize just how little you still remember from your primary and middle school math classes. :)"
Bro, as soon as my daughter hit 4th grade, that reality hit me like a ton of bricks. Very humbling, especially for an EE grad like me. :-)
the secret is to use your three fingers the index finger, the middle finger and the finger no one cares about....along with your thumb. Roll the food into a ball..
use the three fingers like a litte fork and put it in your mouth and push food with thumb!!!
http://jjutol.blogspot.com/
Damn damn the modernity. Over here, I suppose we're still ruffin it as we still do @ have those you listed. As for me, the ultimate blame on modernity is on internet banking. Due to my dependability on it, I went through a horrendous ordeal when I made a trip to the bank recently. I didn't know which counter to approach! Honestly, I felt lost, literally!
Assalamu alaikum wr wb,
Yep the handwriting thing, I see it everyday as a teacher, the lack of basic skills. They dont even know where to put their pen to start the letter. and cursive writing - forget it.
As for eating with hands, I can sympathise with you on that. I know it is sunnah, but it is only sunnah if you are only using the thumb and next 2 fingers. In Yemen, even the local get it all over the floor. After an eating session you could feed another few people on what has fallen on the floor. At least they dont waste it, all the floor scraps go to feed the goats, sheep and chickens.
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