A disruption in the nuts and bolts of our lives, apart from the irritation that comes with it, can sometimes also be instructive in showing us how much more efficient we are now in communicating or sourcing, in a variety of ways, compared to how we went about those things in the earlier, less complex, life pattern that many of us wish still applied.
I admit, going in, that I am like a turtle on land when it comes to embracing new technology. I was the last one in my family to get a cell phone, and that only came about after my previous wife presented me with one as a birthday gift. Similarly, in music, it took me years to come around to synthesized keyboards and electronic drum machines; I spent a long time complaining about their mechanical sound before being persuaded by the variety and portability that the new technology made possible.
This week, with the chilling “no internet access” arriving to upset my communication day, I found myself turning to my long list of cell phone numbers and ended up astonished at how efficient that part of my technological life had become. So many of our needs and pleasures are available in that hand-size piece of equipment out of sight in a jacket. Scrolling through it in search of a number for my doctor/friend Gansham Singh, it suddenly hit me what a treasure that piece of technology had become for mankind.
