Okay, so I\’m with the times. I have a smart phone, a tablet, and a laptop. I am also fond of telling stories–particularly to those considerably younger than I am–that make me sound like a 100-year-old woman with a gray bun on top of my head, knitting in a rocking chair.
\”when I was a kid, not only did we not have cell phones, we had a ROTARY phone. With a cord!\”
\”we never had an answering machine, until I got one in college and then my folks got one at home. If you called and we weren\’t home…you just had to KEEP CALLING BACK.\”
\”When I was in college, I typed my papers. On a typewriter.\”
\”when I was younger, in my 20\’s even, we didn\’t have cell phones. If you didn\’t know where to park, were late meeting up, or were changing venues for an outing…you just had to WAIT until your friend got there and THEN go….\”
I guess I would call myself a late-adopter….I am usually among the last to get things, like a laptop, a smartphone, and a tablet. And I tend to only use what I think I need-I\’m sure there are thousands of functions on each of those devices I\’ve no idea how to use.
I do use the recording device on my phone, though. For a lot of things: verbal journal entries, things I don\’t want to forget to tell someone. Last year I found a meditation I liked, so I read it into the phone recorder so I can listen to it. So that I can follow my own voice in a guided meditation, so I don\’t have to memorize it or read it. And I was with a friend, and she said: \”can you send me that?\” And I was all: \”huh?\” And she (older than I am by ten years, just for the record) hit the \”more\” button and SHARE came up and voila! I could email her the meditation. (I\’ve since made meditations for friends and family and emailed them off!)
So I wanted to find a way to put a sample meditation on here and on Facebook. And I could not figure out a way. I know how to upload a photo, and I know how to make a video. But no mp3. I toyed with the idea of making a video-even just focusing the visual on a still object while I led the practice. but I\’m terrible on video, and that just didn\’t feel right to me. So I asked some of my technically-savvy peeps if they knew how to do it.
They didn\’t. The said it could not be uploaded.
My technically-savviest peep suggested SoundCloud. I was intimidated-would I be able to figure it out? Would I have to call/email/text her, as I often do when trying to master technology?
Yup, I was. And nope, didn\’t need any assistance. Signed up, recorded, and shared.
And here it is:
[soundcloud url=\”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/283871186?secret_token=s-Bugv2\” params=\”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true\” width=\”100%\” height=\”450\” iframe=\”true\” /]
(photo creds: me. Yosemite National Park, June 2016)