Implosion awaiting

My laptop has been giving me some challenges these days. Gadgets are lifelines and a malfunctioning gadget is like dysrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), which gives palpitations and severe inner discomfort till it is sorted out. Not wanting to spend much money immediately, I send the same off to a friend to check it out. After a few days of carefully observing the function, his diagnosis was clear and concise, and treatment also was to the point.

“The laptop has become old, the machine is heating up, the hard drive can not handle multiple functions together, and so, this machine does not have too much life. It might implode soon. Diagnosis – malfunction due to age, overuse, and multiple tasks being done at the same time. The treatment – short term – use only one or two applications or windows at a given time. Long term – get a new machine.” 

I am thankful for my friend, who diagnosed it well and gave me options, both short-term and long-term.

But then, I realized the “overuse” “multiple tasks” and “multiple windows open” is not the machine problem but the “user problem”. As I open my laptop, multiple windows open by default (which I could change, but I do not want to). The WhatsApp web, Slack, The Edge, Outlook, Instagram, and the last document I have been working on! The owner also is addicted to gadgets, and thus overusing them, and working on multiple apps and windows at the same time, without recognizing that this will lead to hard drive failure soon. 

Like Tim Chalis says, “I have become a tool of the tools that are supposed to serve me”. The gadgets use me – a slave to the gadgets.

In one sense this is a picture of a deeper challenge. I get up in the morning, and as I sit down to have my solitude, multiple windows are already open. The window of the list of things I must complete, the household chores like filling up water, putting clothes to wash, the telephone calls I must make, the WhatsApp messages I need to read, Instagram responses to my recent ‘wise’ posts, the response to my blogs, the list goes on...

As I look around, I see something that is interesting. The digital natives, Gen Z and X seem to behave better than me the digital immigrant in terms of the multiplicity of windows. The boomers (immigrants) seem to be more comfortable with multiple windows open whereas the natives seem much more at peace with limited windows open. Tim Challis reminds gadgets have become a tool for the idol of “productivity, significance and knowledge”. Maybe that is what is driving us boomers (me as a good example?)

Two pictures caught my attention today. Today is supposed to be Mount Vesuvius day. “On August 24, after centuries of dormancy, Mount Vesuvius erupts in southern Italy, devastating the prosperous Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing thousands. The cities, buried under a thick layer of volcanic material and mud, were never rebuilt, and largely forgotten in the course of history. In the 18th century, Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered and excavated, providing an unprecedented archaeological record of the everyday life of an ancient civilization, startlingly preserved in sudden death.” Pompeii: Ancient Roman City Destroyed In Mount Vesuvius Eruption | HistoryExtra

The picture above is a 19th-century painting by Eduardo Ettore Forti that depicts routine street life in Pompeii just before the eruption – with Vesuvius looming in the background, about to blow up.

The danger of implosion from a heated-up hard drive and overused RAMs (Rapid access memories) of my life if I do not change my behaviors!

The other picture was one of a lady I came across in my travels to rural India. Going about her life - one window of her life opened that time, amid pouring rain, with a smile on her face. Maybe learning early in life, contentment in the little things of life?

And like the Master said recognizing that “M, dear M, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Ma has chosen it—it’s the main course and won’t be taken from her.” 

Master knew the dangers of multitasking and giving up multiple things for that one thing that is essential for that time and season of life!