How Did People Live Before Electricity?
While Dylan was taking SAT tests and doing fun stuff at home, Shane went away for the weekend to a Christian convention at the beach.
The group – including Bill, who chaperoned and drove – left right after school on Friday. Everyone stayed up until at least midnight while they were there. Shane slept on the floor in a sleeping bag – and he didn’t sleep much.
But Bill sent me pictures and videos as the weekend progressed, and texted me with updates.
The overwhelming tone of every message was: Shane is having a great time.
Shane was hanging out with his friends, and enjoying every minute. They went to enormous whole-convention events, with thousands of teenagers. At 14, Shane was one of the youngest participants in this teen-focused event. The schedule included a blazing, EDM- and rock-inspired concert first thing in the morning, and hooting-hollering comedy acts that started well past Shane’s bedtime.
In all the photos I received, Shane’s eyes were beat red. He was utterly exhausted. But he was awake and gazing at all of the excitement around him, and having so much fun with two of his good friends that he didn’t even realize how tired he felt.
It was a great experience for Shane, whose idea of a good time is – usually – to be wildly entertained without doing too much. If given the option, I think he would spend the entire day either watching YouTube or TV, interspersed only with breaks for junk food and posting stuff on Instagram.
So he summarily dismissed the idea of the convention when I asked if he wanted to go. It wasn’t until he found out that his friends were going that he even considered it.
When Shane was sick a couple of weeks ago, the electricity briefly went off. He was on the couch, with nothing to do, since the TV had gone off and he was still sick.
“How did people live before electricity?” he asked me, baffled.
I didn’t bother explaining that people had to forage for their own food every day. I knew he was just bored. So I told him, “Reading has been a nice past time for the last few thousand years.”
Shane was not deterred. “I can’t do anything except think! It’s only been 20 minutes without electricity, and I’ve already been thinking so much that I decided that Adam and Eve can’t be real because they were both white.”
I didn’t disagree, although I have no clue if Adam and Eve were white. I didn’t personally know either of them.
“Why does that mean they can’t be real?” I asked him.
“Because if they were both white, how could they be responsible for all the other races in the world?”
Hm.
Shane likes to keep the electricity on, so that he doesn’t have to face such things. As quiet as he is, his brain is always moving – unless he’s stimulated by some wonderful outside experience.
And over the weekend, the whole world was electric. That convention kept him so busy, and so focused on fun and good stuff, that he didn’t have time to think at all.
He could just be himself, and enjoy life.