Technology and Me

The old dog new tricks thing -- I am a slow adopter of new technology. I don't yet have a cell phone. Not because the technology is a problem but because I surmise, so far, that I don't need either that constant contact[ability] [I don't like any phone very much and tend to procrastinate about making calls] or that amount of extras geegaws. Yes, there are times it would be marginally more convenient to call someone when I'm not at home and even less marginally more convenient to receive calls. And I'll get one some day, who knows when?

I'm a bit famous in my family for having an ATM card so long before I tried to use it that it had expired. Now I use an ATM for nearly every banking need, but I still don't pay bills online. When ALL bills can be paid online I supposed I'll do it. I didn't use the Internet for a long time, now I can hardly imagine not having that convenience, likewise the microwave. I AM adaptable. But I still believe many technologies are more trouble than they are convenience. And I like writing and receiving real letters.

This new car won my heart when I got home with it and had trouble taking the key out. A little message appeared on what I call the supra-dashboard that read, "to remove key, push inward, turn left and pull." Viola!! I was so impressed that it immediately responded to my problem I wanted to kiss it [but didn't]. It will, the manual says, tell me many other useful things, like how many more miles I can expect to drive on the amount of gas in the tank. It will tell me how ecologically I am driving, when the tires need more air. Will it tell me when to put on lipstick and comb my hair before getting out to go to meet someone? That would be nice but I guess personal grooming is my own problem. So I have a love-em and sometimes leave-em attitude about technology, I'll never be a total convert, I'm too stubborn for that.

Modern Day Miracle

This season's final simulcast from the National Theatre of London yesterday was Chekov's The Cherry Orchard. Rachel and I joined a nearly packed theatre. There was a drab [on purpose] black and whiteness about the production with it's huge cast of characters [difficult to keep in mind who was who much of the time]. The translation seemed very up to date but only jarred when the word "Bozo" was used as an insult. No cast list was provided so only Zoe Wannamaker as the lady of the family is known to me although I very much liked both the entrepreneurial ex-peasant and the not so young student -- others were very good but these three had the big roles and were wonderful.

Later I thought more about the wonder of the experience itself. Perhaps people who have grown up in the computerized world take such things for granted but to me, who remember our family's first party line telephone, sitting in a theatre in Dennis, Massachusetts watching a play that is happening "in real time" as they say, 6,000 miles across an ocean is awesome [and that's not jargon]. I find that a pre-electronic era mind says, it would be less awesome if the theatre were in New York City only 200 miles away. Immediately the educated part of my mind says, don't be daft, distance doesn't matter today. Somehow the signals for the transmission bounce far up in the sky to satellite and bounce back down to be picked up immediately whether in Dennis, MA or in Rio de Janerio or in Sydney, Australia. And it's marvelous! It's amazing. I absolutely cannot understand it except in words, it touches nothing my senses can understand.

Have those who take such things for granted, as very little different than the live TV programs they watched from childhood on, lost something by never understanding that sense of wonder? Just as possibly, back in my childhood I had lost something my parents possibly had at the awe of a wire bringing electricity to their home -- although actually I remember that happening when I was 4 or so. And then is there any advantage to this kind of awe at technological advances. I'm sure smart, thoughtful people have written about such things and possibly about how the loss of amazement has affected us as both individuals and cultures. That's why I never stop reading, I'm always looking for insights I haven't found about the world around.