I belong to a dying tribe.

You may have heard of us. We’re called the Old Timers.

We speak in complete sentences.

We enjoy the process of thinking.

We ponder – though our detractors point out this is the root of the word “ponderous.”

And yet, my tribe members and I are not immune to the transformation that is going on all around us – this pervasive sinkhole sucking away time, trimming each day so it seems shorter than the one before.

As for me, I can see it in my attention span, which is evaporating. Sitting with a book, I can only read a page or so before I look up, needing to fill my eyes with action, stimulation of some sort, before I force myself back to the task of concentration … of thinking. It’s so hard.

The book I read is by a man named Ryszard Kapuscinski – it’s a travelogue of sorts – and he’s talking about travelling from northern Europe to Africa. He explains how the advent of the airplane changed the nature of that trip.

Today we are ripped from a chilly northern clime and delivered to a scorched, washed-out land in mere hours. No time to adjust, as the ancient travellers were able to do, in gradations, as they travelled on horseback or on foot.

That’s been the story of our progress, of course. Somehow, because the machines around us learned to process and do things so quickly, we were carried along, adapting to their pace. There was little time to question.

Speed, always, was prized.

That rapid-fire quality of our own microprocessors became a source of pride. Employers, for their part, sought people who were “decisive.”

The quality of the decision didn’t matter, simply that it was reached tout de suite.

Communication, that valuable commodity, became the centre of our world. The conversation was always going on, everywhere. Out there. Not within. In there was simply white noise.

Our ability to transmit ourselves to others – to the universe – became paramount. We e-mailed, we texted, we instant messaged, we blogged, we Twittered, we posted, we paged and above all we got our message across. We expressed. We were heard. It was immediate.

Though something got lost along the way. Just when we started putting together some real thoughts, some words with weight, we were interrupted by others like us. They wanted to speak to us. They had something to say.

A cellphone on the SkyTrain:

“Hey, where are you? Oh. I’m near Nanaimo Station. Call me when you’re almost here.”

Facebook: “Steve just made chocolate chip cookies. Mmmm... can’t wait until they cool down.”

We were all so in the know that we didn’t even really know.

You know?

But what was lost? Was there something that we had before all this, and without all this – all these communication devices and virtual entertainments – that we don’t have today?

Something that gave us a feeling of peace? A feeling of depth? Of real connection? Of having the opportunity to raise a thought to the surface, chew on it, mull, ponder, turn it over and think and follow it through to a satisfying conclusion?

I recall a man, a big thinker. His name was David Suzuki. He grew up in a time when sentences were long and thoughts, sometimes, longer.

In one of his writings – thankfully available in the reduced form of snippets on various blogs – he wrote:

“Maybe we all need to slow down, take time to read, think, exchange ideas and deliberate questions of who we are, where we come from, where we are heading and what life is all about. If not now, when?”

His words make me think of – just a sec, my computer says I have six messages. One might be from my wife.

OK. Back again.

Where was I?

Chris Bryan is editor of the New Westminster News Leader, a Black Press newspaper.