What has techology done for us lately (or done to use lately)

I really should not have one bad word to utter about technology as fixing the busted electronic gadgetry has been how I have made my livelihood - for over 25 years.   When you sit and wonder though, yes that is something that does not require an “app”, blue tooth or a WIFI enabled hot spot, to do.  To just sit and stare and wonder about inane things is relaxing, to our overworked and over-connected brains.  Computers were to solve the world’s problems, create a paperless world and allow us to do more of nothing.  Well they have morphed over the years but not into any of those things.  They created words like multi-tasking, which is a bullshit word, and others have joined the lexicon as well.  I am not sure I like it because it separates us even more, in my opinion. 

Technology is advancing so rapidly that the curve has left even the remotest correlation to anything linear – it is a curve that is almost an exponential version of an ever increasing exponentially insane curve.  For us in the field of selecting and maintaining technological gadgets, for business or personal, we are increasingly behind the 8 ball to select the correct technological solution to compensate for some issue that was created by nothing more than non-cooperative departments with clueless leadership.  If I was to think about it in an old school sort of way it could be compared to nailing Jell-O to the wall, for those who didn’t get that because there is no “G” number in it or no “app” involved - I am so sorry for you.       

I understand that some technologies are GREAT, better than good and simply stupefying – MRI machines, laser knives for the removal of cancerous cells and the fact that they can replace an entire knee joint in a few short minutes, that is the kind of technology I am all for.  Technology that solves big and real problems in the world, those are good and I am onboard.  The ones that saves lives and prevents accidents, love em!  The ones that make our kids safer in school and at the mall – can’t beat that kind of stuff at all.

Ya know, as I am pecking away on the keyboard I am beginning to realize that maybe my issues have more to do with the application of technology and the fact that we have not spent enough time considering its long term impact.  Not on the problem solving side, those benefits are pretty clear in most cases but on the social side of things.  Sure calculators have made some not as smart in math, I am in that group, but if we forget to learn the theories then when the calculator breaks where are we left?  In the dark I suspect.   Each new advance of technology makes us more susceptible to it, by that I mean we are beholden to it because we forget the theory we needed before the gadget started doing those functions for us.  A perfect example of one that is inane as hell, what is your best friend’s phone number?  Or your parents of coworkers or other family members?  Think about how critical your little hand held electronic gadget has become to you. 

It has become so important that other technologies have sprung up to solve these new problems created by old technology.  We can now back our stuff up, in what they call the cloud.  What the hell is that??  We are all going to working and playing in the cloud soon they say, whoever this nebulous group called “they” is.  Well if I scroll back through the spiral bound ram that is my brain I seem to remember that sometimes clouds will rain down on us a pure hell, water, hurricanes, tornados and hail storms.  That is where we are all putting our stuff, has anyone taken a few minutes to think the ramifications of that all the way through?  The cloud, like all technologies, provides many pluses but we have not determined what the down sides are.  I don’t suppose it matters, whatever they are we will invent some new technology to fix that problem as well.  Technological solutions that were created to solve issues that were created when we solved other technological problems.  Are ya beginning to see what I am trying to say?

Sometimes I like to just sit and stare and wonder and ponder.   Recently Bride and I were rearranging a room, after my Niece moved out, and we hung a big picture frame, with nothing in it.  At first I was not sure about her idea but now I have sat and stared at it, I love it.  It allows me to just stare and I use my imagination to fill that frame with pictures and memories.   It did not happen at a fast pace, there was no app to speed up the process, just sitting and staring at the wall through an empty frame.  It has provided a starting point to some very personal journeys, I have thought of my Dad while staring into that frame, I have also thought of my Mom, all while staring away in silence.  I miss them both but that frame has allowed moments that brought them back to me as if they were sitting beside me.  I have also pondered what my life would have been had I not left small town Ohio, what it would have been with 10 years in the Navy, what it would be like without the 20+ years with Bride.   I love that empty frame.

There is no technology, just a frame on the wall.  I also like to work with wood, recently I spent a few hours on a couple of different afternoons sharpening chisels and hand planes.  Sure they made a technological wonder that plugs into an outlet and will get them razor sharp in no time.  I rather enjoy sharpening them the way my Dad taught me.  Is it slower, yes by several magnitudes of order, but that time of monotonous stroking can be spent wondering about other things, and that is a good thing.  Also when you finally get that 14 inch long smooth bottom Bailey plane sharp enough to shave with (yes that is how sharp mine is) it provides a lot of satisfaction simply because it was not easy to achieve.  When things are easy to accomplish there is rarely ever pride in the work because it only took moments to complete before you were on to something else that is made easy by some other technological gadget. 

I love those old tools and I get even more satisfaction when I stroke that plane across a piece of birds eye maple and it shaves off a sliver of wood that is about a third of the thickness of a sheet of paper and it has not torn up the wood in the process.  For those who have ever planed birds eye maple you know how sharp the tools must be.  So not only do I get the enjoyment of keeping the tools in proper working order and sharp I get the enjoyment of using them to make something.  And that something will have been created with pride in workmanship, something that is lacking in our world, in my opinion.  I suppose that was inevitable when things can be sped up and done at a rate that staggers the imagination because we have applied a technological solution to a problem that did not really exist in the first place. 

I implore you, if you have never spent hours refurbishing a wood plane and even more hours sharpening it to literally razor sharpness, then go to a flea market and by an old rusty one and call me.  I will teach you how to refurb it and how to sharpen it and hopefully it will slow you down long enough to teach you a thing or two about our fast paced world and how to better cope with it.  I might even teach you how to fashion some little wooden trinket using your new block plane.  I ask that you spend some time every day, away from your gadgets, staring a frame, staring at the clouds or just plain staring into space and let your imagination take you on a journey, to where ever it wants to go.