On 3/1/2013 2:56 PM, Gordon Marx wrote:
On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Bill Horne<[email protected]> wrote:
My wife, who is a nurse, has a friend who works in the Public Health Service
in Pennsylvania. They spent an unforgettable evening together in Lancaster,
talking over old classmates and old memories, while we sat on the porch of a
guest house, opposite a field where fireflies were as thick as the stars
overhead, and where the only other sounds to be heard were made by
horse-drawn wagons and carriages.
As you know, it's impossible to remember things or talk to people face
to face if you use any sort of technology whatsoever, or if anyone
around you is doing so.
Let's not be disingenuous, Gordon. We both know that that "always on"
society and the
expensive devices some people use to stay chained to it have created a
parallel "Never Off"
world whose adherents are condemned to be at work from the moment they
wake up
until the moment they fall asleep.
It's a lot more relaxing and fulfilling to talk to an old friend when
you know for a fact that
your friend and your family and your church all expect you to stop
working when the sun
goes down. It's a lot more healthy to follow the diurnal rhythms which
mankind was
bound to for all but the last couple of centuries.
The Amish elders don't forbid their flocks from using modern technology:
they just
keep it at arms length. They ask the faithful to avoid using
electricity, because it
requires men to work on the Sabbath, but when woodworking shops have a
legitimate need for electric tools, they simply install a generator to
power
them, and shut it down at the end of the workday. I've heard that it's
actually
less expensive than getting power from the electric grid.
I'm not Amish, and I made a decision a long time ago to make my living
by tending
machines. I accepted the requirements of being a technical professional:
3 AM
wake-up calls, weekend call-outs, and even a terminal in my home that
allowed
me to solve problems without having to scrape ice or snow off my car, a
decade before dial-up Internet connections were common.
The reservations I and other readers have expressed are, to my mind, just a
common-sense reflection of our desire to have a semblance of privacy and
a modicum of quiet enjoyment while we're in our homes. If you choose to
make yourself available to others at all times, that's /your/ choice.
Bill Horne
--
Bill Horne
339-364-8487
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