To Live With Our Heads on a Pivot

I recently returned from Calgary where I took part in the Alberta Family Child Care Association's annual conference. I came back inspired by the conference, but with a pressing question for my fellow humans: what did people do at airports before smartphones? It seemed that everyone, from young children to elderly adults, were jabbing and swiping, and engaging with the same crap they could have been engaging with without getting out of bed.Here we all were, travelers together in the midst of doing something that should by all rights be exciting. We were traveling, by air, to new places, new climates, new cultures and countries. Or perhaps returning home from the same. In a sane world, in a world that had not lost its ability to wonder, our heads would be on pivots, watching people, admiring the modern architecture, taking in the public art, listening to the unique sounds and reacting to the unique scents of transit, watching with awe as 70 ton machines soar into space carrying people…