When I was a year old, we moved to a house on a dead-end dirt road. The road turned a corner just to the right of our front door, headed down a small hill, and stopped at the creek at the bottom of the hill. My childhood years there were full of the marvels of nature. I could stomp through the creek, climb the nearby hills, and wander through the woods for hours. I would fish a little, maybe shoot my BB gun, but mostly just absorb the sights, sounds, and smells of the woods that seemed to extend forever.
I entered first grade wearing thick glasses, switching to a relatively new invention called “contact lenses” as a rising high school freshman. For a long time, I wondered what my life would have been like without those visual aids, because they were not merely a convenience, but allowed me to read the words on the blackboard, recognize friends across the street, catch a ball, even see the stars in the sky. I don’t wonder about that very much any more, but I am reminded of the impact of technology on my life every morning, when I wake up to a blurry world.
We are spending a few days at a rental house on a nearby lake. The house is cleverly designed and well-built. From the cypress paneling inside the house, to the stand of hardwood trees surrounding the house, to the charm of the lake, and the broad expanse of sky, there is an abundance of natural beauty.
Yet much of the pleasure of our stay here comes from the graceful interweaving of technology. It ranges from the obvious presence of a guest iMac (!), an extensive array of audio-visual gear, and a collection of stainless steel kitchen equipment, to the more subtle absence of humidity thanks to the quietly efficient air conditioning system, and absence of outside noise due to the double-paned sliding glass doors.
Some of the local technology is somewhat less than graceful, however. We brought our small canoe, and my sister-in-law and her husband graciously loaned us their two Hobie kayaks, complete with pedal-powered flippers. These human-powered craft are a great way to enjoy the calmness of the lake in the early morning and late evening hours of the day. But the star of the aquatic show during our stay has been a borrowed 3-seater jet-ski that will go faster than my first car, and will pull water-toy riders around the lake with ease. How things change. One morning I’m an antique curmudgeon, tweeting about the “infernal combustion engines” buzzing around the lake, and the next day I’m stomping my massive carbon- and noise-footprint all around the cove like a modern-day Neanderthal Poseidon, not to mix too many metaphors. The only consolation to my sensitivities is that I am merely one of many splashy noisemakers on the lake this busy Memorial Day weekend.
But as much as I enjoy the quietness of nature, don’t look for me to curse technology. I think I have a pretty reasonable view of its real benefits. Not just the pleasures of comfortable housing in winter and summer, or the fact I make a good living trying to understand, explain, and expand humankind’s increasingly powerful communication capabilities. The more important benefits of technology for me are the improvements in comfort, quality and length of our lives, and the benefits of medical advances, including my human-made ability to see objects clearly at a distance. We live longer and more comfortably thanks to technology.
When I was younger, I thought I loved rain. As I got older (wiser?), I realized that what I really love is being dry in the rain. That means technology – a good roof, a good pair of boots, a good hat, a slicker or even an umbrella.
Even this massive lake itself, it turns out, is a creation of human technology. Dammed by the Corps of Engineers decades ago, it produces electrical power for nearby cities and fun for nearby citizens. It is considered a significant asset to our state.
But, at the same time, I don’t automatically bow to the capricious deities of technology. For example, I still use a mug and brush to lather up, and an antique double-edged razor to shave with. For a while I even used a straight razor, learning to sharpen it on a leather strop by painful trial and error, but the speed and safety of the double-edge work better for me. I don’t resist technology, but nor do I naively assume that all inventions make our lives better.
Thanks to my inescapable visual impairment, I learned early on to live with the often conflicting perspectives of nature and technology. Frankly, I love them both, particularly when they get along. I like to think that my affection for nature helps guide my technological choices, and vice-versa. I don’t blindly (pun surely unintended) assume that either is the superior option.
The dirt road of my childhood has long since been paved. The creek was bridged, then dammed (damned?) to make a small fishing pond. The downhill road now connects to a major thoroughfare, and the woods were turned into subdivisions years ago. One of my sisters lives in one of the adjoining neighborhoods. I miss the woods of my childhood, but I have learned to accept actual progress, those technological advances that truly makes our lives better.
I have wasted entirely too much time trying to figure out how to draw this essay to a clever close, to impart some pithy observation or priceless piece of advice to you, in return for your patient reading. I give up. I simply offer up a bifurcated prayer for you, that you will be able to revere and appreciate the irreplaceable natural delights of Creation, while also cautiously adopting those technological advantages that truly make your life better. Amen.