Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
I love Technology
I miss my laptop. I miss having a decent pc in the house. We have at the moment, what I call Frankenstein's Computer. It is a machine created out of all the bits of previous pcs that my husband has never got rid of since he is a hoarder, and "they might be useful one day". I will give him his due, he was sort of right this time, as we do have a prehistoric monster in the corner of our bedroom that we can just about download our emails from. But that's pretty much it. At the moment, I am using my mum's work laptop, as she has lent it to us, for Neil to do some online applications.
Anyway, this got me thinking about the strange reaction technology can get within the Pagan world. There seems to be a lot of harking back to the "good old days", when we didn't have the technology we have now. I find this strange, since most of our standard of living comes from the way we use technology.
I think a lot of pagans consider appreciating technology in the same light as enjoying materialism. While we don't need to have the latest plasma screen tv, i-Pod, mobile (cell) phone, etc, etc...we do however have a need for the technology that makes solar panels, creates clean energy, builds our homes in sustainable ways, etc, etc...
I was walking around Gloucester Cathedral last weekend. Walking over the graves of our ancestors. I was grateful for living in this turn of the century, not the last, or further back. Reading the epitaphs of young women who have died in childbirth is quite chilling. I KNOW that if I had been around in the past, if either my son and I had survived his birth, I would have lost him at 4 months. And both my daughter and I certainly would have died during her birth. That's what technology has done for us.
Perhaps I am being melodramatic, but we do seem to take a lot for granted in this century. Wishing for simpler times may not be quite the same thing, but it depends on what is meant by simpler times.
Anyway, this got me thinking about the strange reaction technology can get within the Pagan world. There seems to be a lot of harking back to the "good old days", when we didn't have the technology we have now. I find this strange, since most of our standard of living comes from the way we use technology.
I think a lot of pagans consider appreciating technology in the same light as enjoying materialism. While we don't need to have the latest plasma screen tv, i-Pod, mobile (cell) phone, etc, etc...we do however have a need for the technology that makes solar panels, creates clean energy, builds our homes in sustainable ways, etc, etc...
I was walking around Gloucester Cathedral last weekend. Walking over the graves of our ancestors. I was grateful for living in this turn of the century, not the last, or further back. Reading the epitaphs of young women who have died in childbirth is quite chilling. I KNOW that if I had been around in the past, if either my son and I had survived his birth, I would have lost him at 4 months. And both my daughter and I certainly would have died during her birth. That's what technology has done for us.
Perhaps I am being melodramatic, but we do seem to take a lot for granted in this century. Wishing for simpler times may not be quite the same thing, but it depends on what is meant by simpler times.
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