My Pre-Internet Brain.

Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist/artist/designer who creates visual masterpieces, one of his pieces is a poster reading, " I Miss My Pre-Internet Brain," He has designed many more since this one which was included as part of the collection: "Welcome to the 21st Century."

Coupland is sixty years old, a few years older than me and, like me, lucky enough to have owned a pre-internet brain and can therefore compare past and present. It's quite a concept and makes me feel privileged to have been born in the 1960's, among a generation of children who may well have been the last to grow up in a world of self-discovery, wonder, curiosity, and creativity. (Without the internet)

A big joy of childhood was the library, a big quiet building where one could wander for ages and ages and go home with lots of dusty books to investigate, to enjoy, or not to enjoy, everyone was a new discovery. Compared to today when you know exactly what you want to read, you've seen the reviews, ordered online and a pristine book arrives on your doorstep wrapped in a box.
 I still love the library. I come home after a visit, sit down in my Lloyd Loom chair and retreat into the world of 11th century Paris or Tudor England or anywhere in the world at any time at all for that matter, even outer space if I feel so inclined. The library today though is a noisy affair with lots of bleeping going on and people talking into their laptops. Old people shuffle about too embarrassed to ask how to borrow their books as the touch screen has replaced the librarian.

Back in the day, my friends and I on the rare occasions that rain stopped play, we really didn't mind getting wet, but sometimes our parents insisted the torrential downpour was a bit too much, would idle our time away colouring in or painting, or (me, at least) weaving That meant using colouring pencils to colour in pictures in a book. Today that might be described as an exercise in 'mindfulness.'

The thought of being stuck indoors though, was a frightful one. Why would anyone want to do that? There were, (still are, actually) trees to climb, rivers to swim, orchards to strip, fields to scour.
 I spent about a third of my childhood in swimming pools, proper swimming pools with a proper deep end, or open-air pools which were always so cold that your skin turned blue. 

Then there was school, Primary School was wholesome fun, Secondary School not so much but I did learn a lot. Curiously although I hated Physics, my teacher, to my hilarity, was called Mr Grime, I learned an awful lot although didn't realise it at the time. Who knew flow tanks would have been so helpful?

I wasn't allowed the luxury of further education and went to work in London just short of my sixteenth birthday. At twenty I was promoted to a Chief Referencing Officer, fancy being a chief of anything at that tender age. My job was to travel across all the London Boroughs collating evidence of land ownership. This would see me chatting to a Lord and Lady in Kensington one day and a big burly gypsy on a caravan site the next. I loved that job, and it has stood me in good stead as a researcher. I expect all the information I found by trawling around with my pencil and pad can now be found on the internet, not so the myriad of stories behind the facts, however.

Thirty years later, my pre-internet brain is shared with my post internet brain.

Today as I walked around the park with my dog, I came across a lot of young mums pushing their babies in their buggies. Ducks, swans, herons, cormorants, woodpeckers, parakeets, tits, a sly fox all totally ignored. Bright orange and red crinkly leaves left underfoot and not kicked up in delight, squirrels left alone to squirrel their nuts. All the while the babies moaned and the mums listened to music or talked loudly into their hands-free sets, their shoulders hunched.

The dog trod in a sticky pile of something and was covered in burrs, as I extricated them, I realised my hand was covered in poo. I had my wellies on so climbed down the old roots of a tree into the stream and splashed about as I washed my hands; I dried them on a waxy leaf... much to the horror of a lady walking by who politely passed me a packet of disinfectant wipes.

I am lucky to have a pre-internet as well as a post-internet brain.
My granddaughter is reaping the benefits and seems to be developing a well-rounded grasp of the realities of nature as compared to those displayed on an app. She understands that birds don't talk in human voices but do swoop down from trees and eat the bread, or wholemeal wraps to be precise, that she gleefully throws for them. Charmingly, for now, her favourite bird is a 'cagpie.' (Don't bother Googling)