When I was a kid, we saw these memorex commercials of a guy sitting on a chair whose hair was being blown back by music coming from a speaker. The insinuation was that music recorded on a memorex cassette possessed the same quality as live music.
That couldn’t have been further from the truth.
It doesn’t matter if it’s an LP album, cassette, CD or even digital music, nothing compares to live music.
Our church pianist has been in the hospital the past few days. As a result, we had to rely on recorded music for our services. We sang to prerecorded CD’s. It’s not the same.
It is ok as a temporary substitute, but I wouldn’t want to do it every week.
This is the way it is with technology. Now, I am far from being a Luddite. After all, I am posting this on the internet. It still stands that technology is a wonderful temporary substitute, but is vastly inferior to reality. For instance, I enjoy talking to my wife on the telephone when I cannot be in her presence, but I would far rather look in her eyes face to face.
The organic is always preferred above synthetic.
Other examples:
Live musical instruments vs. computer generated music
Playing football vs. Madden on the Playstation
Bananas vs. banana flavored anything
A handshake vs. a facebook poke
Running outside vs. running on a treadmill in front of a screen showing video of outside
Human conversation vs. checking facebook, email, text message, etc.
A real kiss from my wife vs. an xoxo in a text
Again, I participate in all of the above, but rely on them only when the real thing is not available. I far prefer reality to the artificial substitute.
The difference is quite apparent.
What else do you prefer in reality over synthetic? Am I just out of touch with progress?
Submit a comment.
P.S. Say a prayer for Ila Sharp, our pianist, please.
Joel Stiff's Adventure 