Myth of the [technology] Cave

I heard a report on NPR about people at the inauguration who, instead of watching Obama, watched their cell phones watching Obama. The reporter pointed out that people increasingly seem to be digitizing life rather than living it. I mean hey, I’m reporting on a report of a trend, rather than having noticed the trend myself. Argh.

Maybe we’re all just tired of being anonymous, tired of waiting around for our Warhol 15 minutes, so we bob to the surface of the dogpaddling masses by exposing every sordid detail of our lives, every un-clever thought, every misdeed, every contorted image, on Disgrace Book or CrySpace or DupeTube. Somebody LOOK at me, dammit…I’m bloggin’ here...

Maybe technology is the Great Buffer. If we filter everything through a phone, iPod, computer, camera, webspace, etc., we have a layer of cushy protection between our tender feelings and the real deal—we can PRETEND to experience and not have to go through the icky, messy business of actually experiencing, creating digital (fictional?) lives for ourselves so we don’t have to LIVE. Maybe technology is the myelin coating on the whopping bundle of overstimulated, overworked, fearful, insecure raw nerves most of us have become.

My brother, a calm voice of reason when I’m piling phone books on my soapbox to get a little higher, reminds me that technology has also increased food production, advanced medical care, and made it possible for me to buy discount Joseph Siebel shoes on line…mmm…gooooood.

I’ve circled the labyrinth again and come back to koyaanisqutsi—life out of balance. Maybe we’re simply not creatures of balance, just bumbling naked apes who love excess, extremes, and a good poo fight. It’s romantic, especially when I’m sweating like a racehorse over a canner full of tomatoes, to think that “back in the day” before technology, we were more in tune with the true rhythms of life. But I don’t think too many prairie women stuck to the butter churn once they got their hands on Land O’Lakes. Still, margarine is just WRONG. But don’t touch my electric coffee grinder or my digital guitar tuner.

Check out http://web.unbc.ca/~dewielb/205.cave.htm (the image is from http://web.unbc.ca/~dewielb/205.cave.htm). Maybe Plato really WAS a smart guy, and the myth of the cave wasn’t such a myth after all. Maybe we were never in balance. Maybe balance isn’t something to get BACK to, but the NEXT evolutionary step.

After I heard that NPR report, I had a brief urge to “blow up the TV,” as John Prine suggested. But I guess I’ll just turn it off now & then. And record all my shows on the DVR. Then take pictures of the screen with my cell phone, of people taking pictures with their cell phones.