Wow that last picture is hard-hitting. It is hard to imagine society being flipped on its head, but I agree that it is an inevitability. I don't know how to program blockchain, I maintain my luddite status, but my grandparents always told me how important it was to know basic skills, so I learned them. I try to balance my knowledge of technology with the part of me that fights it. (I still like to write lists on paper, write paper thank-yous, read paper books. I like to plan calendars with bright colored pens, and feel the paper underneath as I write. I suppose it's strange, and Patrick thinks I'm crazy, but it makes me still feel connected in some way to what's real I guess.) I also try to print my pictures, just in case something happens to our power grid and we lose everything. I think about that often actually. I am a step below a prepper I guess, haha.

I would give anything to live off the grid. My father was a farmer in West Virginia, and that side of my family has been farmers going back to the 1700s. He lives for the Earth and the dirt, and I have always loved that about my dad. He moved to Arizona and ended up working 10 hours a day in a factory, putting together plane parts. I think it finally broke his spirit. I will never understand why people think that farm work is so terrible compared to "city work". Whether you work in a factory or a cubicle, it is still enough to break your spirit. I am almost at that point. I get along ok on Steemit, but I often fantasize about throwing my laptop across the room, calling our realtor, gathering our most beloved things and booking it out somewhere to live in the country. Giving our children the capacity to see live animals, how animals are born, how to care for them, the cycle of life outside of a public school power point presentation. But then I feel trapped, and like I will live in the daily grind city bubble forever.

Anyway, interesting article. It's awesome that you have those pictures of your family. I have some hidden away at my mother's house, and I used to treasure looking at them...another time...another world.