I thought I knew all about clouds, like the white fluffy ones that float above us on a sunny day or the dark stormy ones that come with thunder, rain and bolts of lightning. I know about having one’s head in the clouds or having clouded vision. I know that the opposite of clear can be cloudy. I even remember high school science class in which we learned about cumulus, cirrus, and, my favorite, nimbostratus clouds. However, all of that has nothing to do with THE CLOUD.
My first brush with the Cloud came with my computer financial program which one day indicated that I could sync my information on this new-fangled thing. Somehow the idea of sending all those hard numbers off into a nebulous being in space did not seem like a good idea. I and my money stayed unsynced, while remaining firmly planted on terra firma. Then in the process of getting a new internet and TV service I was informed that I no long needed a DVR which I thought was the latest in technology. Apparently it has become passé so quickly that its going has not even left a wake behind it. Now, if I want to save a TV program for future viewing, it will be saved in the Cloud.
I get the most wonderful vision of this cloud. It must be huge to hold in its fluffy depths all of our choices, our finances, our pictures and our backed up lives. But while I know this is just the latest in technology, part of me wonders if one day my bank account will be gone and all my pictures will be of some unknown family with six sets of twins. And what would my recourse be then? The Cloud would just shrug its downy shoulders and drift away.
Does this anthropomorphizing of things come with age? If I was fifty years younger would I just accept the Cloud and move on? Perhaps so……but then I can just see this large, white thing…………….