As A Society, I Think We're Losing

I live in a bubble here, and I rather like it that way. There is no drama, there are no stupid people to deal with (outside of my own kids on occasion), and no pressure of any kind to do or be anything other than me. Before you go and get all jealous, I do have deadlines and appointments and stress, so there's that.

But there are downfalls to living in my own little world. One of the biggest is the fact that I am clueless about the goings-on in the real world. Even big and huge things, like headline news. Wars are waged, celebrities have babies or die or do other newsworthy things, or homes burn down in my neighborhood and I am completely clueless about these things. I have to say that Facebook has been one of my best friends for keeping me informed of things that I need to be informed of. Whether these things are great big world-wide events, or small town in-my-hood things, I can count on FB to deliver.

Can you tell that I don't subscribe to the daily newspaper? I have my reasons. Mostly the fact that I don't have/take the time to actually sit down and read it. Ain't nobody got time for that here.

So since I live in my own little bubble, I'm going to go right ahead and assume that nobody else knows what I'm about to reveal to you. This way I won't feel like such a loser for not knowing this if I'm pretending that you don't know it either. Are you ready?

Schools are not teaching children to write in cursive anymore.

I was very shocked and taken aback when I heard this. I think I also staged a protest in my mind and then held a private memorial service for cursive writing. It's kind of amazing what the mind can do in the space of .38 seconds when one is talking to someone who is revealing difficult information to digest. (On the scale of one to "your baby is being tested for Down syndrome" this ranked somewhere around a 2, just to clarify. Or maybe a 3. Okay, I'd probably go with a 3.5 for sheer shock value. I mean, it's kind of huge.)

The teacher that I was talking to said that everything is done on computers now, and most signature lines say "by typing your name, you are authorizing us to use this as your signature." Which is all well and good, but honestly, HOW WILL KIDS WRITE THEIR SIGNATURES?!

Shouty capitals are necessary when one is trying to process what the future will be without cursive writing. Bear with me, and put your ear plugs in if it'll help. I'm very disturbed by how the world is changing. First they take Pluto's planet status away, and now they strip cursive writing from schools. What kind of second-rate education are kids getting nowadays anyway?

In trying to moving on from the shock and confusion of this kind of information, my mind realized that cursive writing will be obsolete in another decade or two. Old love letters will be found in bundles in attics, and linguists will be called in to decipher what language they were written in because nobody will be able to recognize the characters making up words. It'll be like cave writing. And then, because my sense of humor generally comes to rescue me when I can't process things, I told Becky that she could probably leave Christmas lists and such in plain sight when she has children because they won't have a clue what they'll say if she writes in cursive. Oh, the secret messages that can be passed this way, and the fun to be had!

That's when Becky revealed to me that she probably couldn't write an entire sentence in cursive.

If you need me, I'll be over here in the corner crying for the loss of all things right and decent in this world.


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