The fickle gods of technology
Yesterday the charger for my netbook died, suddenly, leaving me unable to do most of my work or get online. Armed with the internet on his phone, Tom procured a new one, and here I am, less than thirty hours on, plugged in again. But in the meantime I’ve had opportunity to contemplate (and not for the first time) how tech dependant I am. Most of my work depends on it, at least at some point in the process. Today I sorted the boy’s Dodo costume (for Alice in Wonderland) did some reading, and tackled some research notes. There is life beyond the interwebs.
Last year when we first started the floating life, I had not really sorted internet, electricity or technology. It took a few months to figure out how to make it all work. (A mobile that creates wi fi hot spots, a netbook rather than the laptop, needing far less electricity, and an uncanny sense to smell out internet hotspots on the side of the road.) So for the last few months, with extra help from friends, we’ve been doing well. But so much of my social contact does depend on the intenet – email and facebook. The people I work with are scattered all over the world, the people I like to hear from in non workish ways are liberally distributed too. When I’m miles from the nearest town, that contact is a lovely counterbalance to the isolation of extreme rural living. And I miss it when it’s gone.
The Druid community is sufficiently spread out to make the net a total blessing. I remember what it was like not really knowing any other pagans, and how hard it used to be making contact with like minded folks – especially out in the sticks where moots are not so plentiful. I thank the gods for the technology that keeps me connected, and lets me find out what others are thinking.
My ancestors of not so many generations ago lived out here without any such technology. Admittedly, they were farmers, not authors, and the pub was in viable walking distance. Still is, come to that. The items I depend on would have been unimaginable for my great grandmother. So much that my life revolves around would make no sense to her at all. If people didn’t live in Dursley, she had the option of writing or visiting – other family were in Bristol, Cornwall, probably other places too. No skype to keep them in touch.
During the year when my lover was thousands of miles away from me most of the time, we depended on the internet, able to talk daily. Even so, it was hard, and I found myself thinking about the women in history whose men went off, to war, to explore, on ships… women who waited faithfully, or not so faithfully for years, for their men to come back. Women who went to their graves not knowing if they’d been widowed, or abandoned. Reading historical novels I am frequently struck by the number of plots that work because people can’t just whip out their mobile phone to summon help, ascertain where someone is, or pass on news.
With the author hat on, the world that existed before this one, where words typed here would not magically travel to people all over the world at a push of a button, appeals to me. Brave old world, so much more mysterious, uncertain and challenging than this one. But given the option, I like the communication aspect of this one, and even when the gods of technology frown on me, and gadgets die, I am so grateful for their existence. I love my little wind up radio, that brings music into my world. I love this magic box into which I type stories and ideas. I love meeting people who are thousands of miles away and sharing moments with them. There are many things about modern living that I decry, but the things we have are tools, and we can choose how to use them, and we do have the option of using them well.
Enough meandering. There’s a review to write on a Victorian novel (I’m on goodreads) and facebook to check, and then a walk down the towpath to see if I can sniff out the internet source I use for moving all those email files around.
