Laptops and Other Heavenly Bodies

My computer died.  It is barely six months old, which makes you wonder what is going on in these high tech industries.  Are laptops considered so ubiquitous and disposable that their tested quality control horizon does not exceed half a year?  In fact, this will be the second time since bringing this computer live—just before the New Year and just before launching myself into blogdom—that I will be required to return to factory settings.  A new motherboard and hard drive have been ordered; the company says it will get here when it gets here.  In the meantime, I am relegated to a cheap mini laptop that we use for traveling.  It is so slow that I occasionally must stop typing to allow the technology to catch up with my thoughts.

In this day and age, losing a major piece of technology—laptop, smartphone, or other pricey e-toy—is like having a stroke.  Connections to major sensory and motor functions are severed, leaving the “victim” without friends, access, or a voice to the world.  It is an emergency of hysterical proportions, eclipsing all else.  Suddenly, work, chores, social engagements, and vacations must be postponed pending the resolution of a work ticket that may or may not restore previous functionality.  Without our Internet connections, our contacts, our games, and our online banking we can no longer function.  And there is no app for that.

Every once in a while—often in moments like this—another part of my brain kicks in.  It sees a different perspective, one where we are merely morsels scattered across the third rock from the sun.  From this more universal point of view I wonder what it’s all about.  How important can it be to get my emails, or to reach someone just now on their cell phone?  What if I do not find the right color shoes to match my dress?  What if I do not make the bed?  What if my husband hits traffic on the way home?  What if we are late to the movie?  Think about all the stresses and urgencies that consume our daily lives.  How often do we cry over the proverbial spilled milk?  Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do.

One of the side effects of the information age is that we have vastly increased the speed of business.  At the same time, we have also compressed cycles of anticipation and angst.  We are taking more and more hits to the head and to the heart.  I fear that the human vessel has not been stress-tested for the world in which we now find ourselves.  We need to put some space between us and the parcels of information that bombard us.  We need to make time to recover our perspective, our purpose, and our humanity.

No one knows why we are here on this tiny planet.  It cannot be for the purpose of inventing a faster car, designing a taller building, or honing more precise weapons of mass destruction.  What if we are simply an experiment, designed to prove or disprove a greater hypothesis that life forms will collaborate for the greater good in the interest of harmonious survival?  Suppose our success or failure as a planet determines whether other planets throughout the universe will be cultivated?

A lovely song once said, “God is watching us—from a distance.”   I know many people who would argue various aspects of that statement for a whole spectrum of philosophical reasons.  But one thing seems clear to me.  Whoever or whatever is responsible for our being here meant for there to be harmony of the spheres--for us to co-exist and depend upon each other.  Otherwise, I would be here alone, with no one to fix my darned computer, and with no one to read my blogs.

Tomorrow's blog:  Purple Patch