I KNEW I was behind the curve of technology. I'm also behind the curve of morality/integrity/truth. Are you too?

Interesting and a question that deserves a far more extensive answer than I am able to give at the moment.  I know enough technology to get along at work but not very good at understanding how it works and hoe to fix it.  All of what they call "intuitive" is just not at all to me. Had an I Phone for a particular job I did several years ago but otherwise have done without a cell phone entirely though my husband has one. 

Not sure who you consider "the right people" we are to learn from.  I learned from the values of the community in which I grew up, those of my parents, The Bible, sometimes my friends.  I did not accept or interpret what I learned necessarily the same way others did so though I generally accepted much of what I was taught in a lot of things I went my own way.  I was brought up to marry well and have children which I was convinced I would fail at so I looked for alternatives.  One of the few of which I could even consider was leaving home and going somewhere I could feel I mattered more to people and I could think more for myself.  I grew up very comfortably and wanted nothing besides self-esteem but just felt I did not fit in and could never be successful living the way I was taught to live. So I left home at 17 and lived a hippie life in a big city which I felt was more conducive to my freedom and learning about myself and growing as a person and enjoying what life I had. My parents hired detectives to find me which they never did and I was gone for good though I did keep in touch with them and visited them once or twice a year. 

Hope to continue this when I have more time. 

I grew up in a liberal household - my parents voted for Kennedy in 1960 though I guess for Eisenhower before that.  We learned to always tell the truth, to work for a living, and to respect people and get along with them. To live and let live and not try to second guess or pry into the personal affairs of anyone else.  To help people less fortunate than yourself.  Not to blow your own horn but to let your actions speak for you. That was about it.  They were not religious though they did go to church when my father was home.  Later on in life when I realized that my sinfulness was beyond human forgiveness I started to really believe in Jesus. 

There were however a lot of rules that we supposed to follow and they extended down to almost every aspect of life. I was sent to charm school, etiquette classes, dancing classes(social dancing) and learned deportment.  The gist of most of them was simply politeness and deference. I never cared much for what fork we were supposed to use and when and how to make inane chatter during meals - I did not want to always have to be on my guard and worrying about this or that.

I liked guys but I guess because I was awkward and tongue-tied and not a "looker" I was not asked out until I became sexually active when I was 16.  I was supposed to be very careful about my behavior or my mother said the right kind of men would not respect me and want to marry me. I rebelled against the notion that any man could "own" me and really saw no reason why I couldn't just be with any guy I liked and wanted to be with. I only had one regular boyfriend in the year before I left home.  Becoming a hippie one thing a lot of us were into was sexual freedom though really at that age we didn't understand much about what that meant. Which was we pretty much had a lot of casual sex as well as boyfriends and we were proud that we were not "hung up" or "inhibited" like our mothers.  Drugs are great for dissolving inhibitions.  For several years mostly all I wanted to do was play and feel good and dance and hang out. I worked at a number of low-paying jobs and helped out cooking and cleaning and washing. I lived a year outside Boston with a man who had been one of my teachers a couple of years earlier. I went back to CA to Berkeley with a guy I was in love with and when he dumped me I made so as well as I could and lived in a commune and then got together with a guy who was in the Army in the Philippines where I went as his wife (though we were not married). I loved that the people there were so loving and open. When we fought I returned to the states for a couple of years where I worked in the Boston and Berkeley areas before I met a man who was working in Oregon and I started driving between there and Berkeley (between two men!) until I finally pulled up stakes and moved to Oregon. There I got involved with a radio station which was the first real work I enjoyed doing and became very serious about a guy I was working with for a while until things turned bad nd he was trying to control me but the more he was able to it was like the more he resented me.  I was very relieved when it ended and I went back east where I worked on a womens farm and started to take secretarial and computer classes.  I was in my late 20s by then and had crossed the country a number of times and had enjoyed many relationships both serious and casual. But I did not care for being dependent on men I was going out with who had regular jobs and I wanted to be more independent financially so I would not be having to ask them for everything. 

For years my life had suffered from a lack of any serious focus and I knew that in wanting to always mostly enjoy myself that I was hurting some people who expected something entirely different from me.  A lot of men they like when you're carefree and light to begin with but when they get serious about you they want you to be more committed to just them and often exclusively which really I was seldom willing to do although I did still want the security of a committed relationship.  But also needed the recognition and attention I received from continuing casual affairs as I was only just starting to realize I could find that in other ways than just being with men. 

In my early 30s I lucked into a corporate job and by then I was ready to take it very seriously as I wanted to do well and I kept my personal life entirely separate.  I eventually fit in and grew with the company and when it was sold I remained and will have been there for 30 years next year. And after about twelve years I was making much better salary which after about 16 years was much better than I ever dreamed I would ever do!

I was voting Democratic into this century when the party I felt started to become more and more far out and lost touch with reality and started being based to much on just hopes and dreams and not the way people really are.  And too much just conducting social experiments using ever more and more of the taxpayers money which as I increased in wealth I realized was like legalized robbery.  Seemed to me that they were systemizing charity into a government function  which , along with other such systemizations, took all that I felt should be personal out of them. More and more people lost their religious faith and I saw that more and more of them instead of pinning their hopes on God now turned to the government. And a lot of people were thinking OK we don't have work any more because we can just tax the rich people and there will be enough to go around for everybody.  Which I saw as immoral.  People felt entitled to a living from the government.  Which I saw as the work of the liberal politicians.  Which removes all incentive to work and improve oneself and one's lot.  And people became very willing to sell their freedom for this which I could never do nor did I ever consider doing such a thing. So I saw the liberal government more and more trying to herd people into categories and telling us what to believe and when which I objected to because I think we need to make up our own minds about things as well or as poorly as we can and are able to do.  

None of this did I fit into. I see that as destroying our individuality  and our spirit. The ability to work for something and try for something and either make it or not to me is about the greatest gift there is because only through work do we find ourselves and realize our responsibilities. I believe in individual responsibility and not in collectivism.  Because only as individuals do we have consciences. The group as a whole has no conscience.  Although I have always loved men and been pretty promiscuous I did finally find almost the husband of my dreams.  Weird it was the type of man my parents would have wanted me to marry when I was young but over thirty years later!  I believe as women we have enshrined love and our victimhood much too much. We need to love men yes but lets have lives of our own as well that don't depend only on men and their permission and their good favor. I deplore the way we backbite and try to destroy one another out of jealousy rather than helping and strengthening each other. We don't respect each other enough. 

Since the Democrats went so far out and off the mainstream end I have found I have more in common with Republicans so have voted mostly with them the last fifteen years.  I respected especially Mitt Romney who was living in my state and whose home was not far from where my husband and I moved after we married in 2011. 

While I don't follow all the "rules" I grew up with I have added some of my own which are to me a synthesis of many I did grow up with.  Or that hit on what I feel was the essence of much that I grew up with.  I deplore the permissiveness that seems to reign these days where everyone just goes for themselves and to hell with anyone else. That is NOT how I grew up. And that is NOT respect for one another. To me seems so much like now anything goes if you can get away with it and people sneer at things like boundaries or limitations that have existed to make society comfortable for EVERYONE, not just a few.  People break into the property of others and are exonerated because they are seem as "victims" so somehow not subject to the same laws as the rest of us.  Same with people who enter this country illegally - people no longer hive a damn and lawbreakers are treated as some kind of heroes or pities and allowed to get away with anything because they are "victims".  There is "compassion" for the "poor unfortunate" "victims" but none for those who live their lives on the up and up and follow the laws of this country or at least most of them. 

I suppose we all have out own notions of what laws are proper and which are not.  Or what "rules". I certainly do not follow some that others would have me follow but my transgressions are more in the nature of what exists between consenting adults rather than what is against the law.  Who knows but others may have their special rules of their own that suit them but may not suit the society at large.  I mind my own business and don't go sticking my nose into the business of others.  Not do I attempt to pass judgement on them - which is just how I grew up and what I grew up with.  Perhaps other did not grow up that way.  I know I am gossiped about and I love gossip as much as the next person but I always try to refrain from mentioning people by name or using it to degrade and excoriate people.  That is just me - that is important to me as it was to most of the people I grew up with. Many other people probably do not give a damn about that and just blast away and judge. 

So much is now accepted and excused that my generation not only did not grow up with but that we did not even know existed in those days.  I have come too not only to consider some things for myself but to engage in things which I never dreamed of when I was young.  As I say mostly involving consenting adults. But if you say that the moral tome of today is not what it once was I must plead guilty to having at least a part in making it the way it is.  Whether for better or worse. Certainly less stringent and more permissive.