My esteemed sibling (whose blog is linked to the right) has written in favor of luddism, and noted the irony that he, a habitual internet-user, is decrying the influence of technology in our lives. My belief is that it is crucial to remember that technology - whether it's a car, a computer, a microwave oven, or synthetic fibers - is only a tool, not a crutch, and should only be used when the energy and expense is really worth the help that it gives. People should not be whipping out their calculators to add 34+43, and we shouldn't get in the car and use GPS to go to the corner drug store when we have perfectly good legs. I sew by hand even though my mother's sewing machine is right down the hall, because the speed and neatness it would offer is often not important to me. However, I type more often than I write by hand because it's much faster and easier, and the ability to reproduce many copies of my writing in various places (email, websites, print, backup disks, et cetera) is important to me. The key is to be mindful of the purposes of the tools we use, and see if they're really as necessary or as helpful as we think.
For instance, today I was faced with the task of creating a chart for recording the work I do for my mother, so we both know how much she owes me for it. She had created a chart which was very impractical, with very little space for data, and I had promised to come up with a better one. I envisioned a page with collumns and lines. My first instinct was to get a ruler, pen, and paper and hand-draw some lines, but then I thought, "Why, when I have a computer right in front of me with many programs capable of producing lines on paper?"
After only a few moments fidling around on the computer, I realized how pointless it was going to be. A computer-generated chart would be useful if we needed many copies that would be used by many people, but this would only be used by me, and I only needed one copy for now. I grabbed my ruler and a pen and had my chart done in just a few moments.
As I worked on it, some really significant advantages came to mind. I already knew how to do it, and my artist's hand and eye helped to avoid the crooked lines and too-small spaces that sometimes arise from hand-drawn charts. It took no electricity - there wasn't even a light on in the room, just sunlight from the window. There was no need to calculate whether the size of my lines would be the same in real life as on the screen, and I had perfect control over what it would look like without having to worry about pushing a wrong button, running out of tonor, or any other problems that arise from working with computers and printers. I even realized that I could draw my lines all the way to the edges of the paper - no need for space-wasting margins.
I think it's quite prudent for anyone to know how to do such tasks by hand, and not depend on computers for everything. Not that I think we'll have some apocalyptic event that wipes out our modern technology and sends us back to the dark ages. But blackouts happen all the time, and I think it's foolish not to know how to use your hands for something other than pushing buttons, and your feet for something other than pushing pedals.
Peace out y'all.
