“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
It’s just days until I leave for Hong Kong and time to start saying goodbye to friends and family. But with Email, Skype and various social platforms to connect us, should I be feeling sad?
We Only Part To Meet Again… On Skype
When Skype did a survey of 2,000 brits last year they found that 50% of them found it easier accepting jobs abroad thanks to modern comms methods. It’s the same for me. On arrival, I’ll annoy the hissy flight attendants by texting my family as we land. Friends will follow me through baggage reclaim and immigration via some (hilarious) Twitter updates & as soon as I’m settled in a flat with WIFI I can speak to them daily on Skype.
Technology has already had a profound effect on my relationships. Most of my friends are spread out across the UK and Europe and I connect with them daily online. We have our roots in reality, but the Internet is the oxygen that sustains our connections. Admittedly, no digital device has the power to conjure the level of intimacy you experience when face to face. Skype comes the closest, but even they haven’t been able to create an emoticon hug that can release the same amount of endorphins as the real variety… yet. But flashback just 20 years and with no Email, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Skype, departing for a new life abroad would have been so much harder.
The Good in goodbye
What price have we paid for this ease of connection? The snippet above from Kerouac’s On the Road nicely sums up how saying goodbye can be both heart wrenching and freeing. While it's great that modern technology has lessened the former, what about the latter?
The ease of communication has detracted from the adventure of living abroad. The Internet can mean that we are anchored to a fixed sense of self, unable to lead a temporary new life somewhere new.
Equally, technology makes it nearly impossible to say goodbye to people we *want* to leave behind. One of the great advantages about moving away was that you can finally ditch those personified cling-ons guiltlessly; not anymore. Now the most annoying of acquaintances can bridge oceans and time zones with assistance from the World Wide Web.
A first world problem
In so many regions of the world, goodbyes exist as they once were for us: sorrowful ends, so I celebrate the freedom technology brings me. I will still feel downcast on the day I depart for Hong Kong and I can't be sure I would go if staying in touch wasn't this easy. No matter what adventures come, I’ll miss living my life with the people close to me. It's hard to ever see a day when leaving loved ones for a prolonged period doesn't leave a lump in the throat, but technology has made it bearable.
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