Sometimes there’s nothing I like better than to relax, to feel free and at ease. You can empathize with me I’m sure. I bet some of the best moments in your life have arrived whilst you were relaxing, freed from the environs of the world around you. How happy were you the day your winter vacation started this past December? What about when your summer vacation commenced last May, the day all your academic commitments and worries were staved off for another three months time? I’ll admit it, I was pretty happy. Let’s continue to push our inquiries a little further. Right after that big test…how relieved did you feel? What about when the freedom is much simpler, even bordering on the commonplace? How gratified and comfortable are you when you are freely involved in your favorite activity (whether it be reading, skiing, fishing, playing guitar, or maybe watching a good movie with a long-time friend)? Even in those things which seem very trivial at first glance, our sense of well-being and security is often manifested the most when they free us the most. Think about it. The creative, human spirit is also often enhanced from freedom as well. The inspiration for a great many poem, nocturne, and novel has arisen during moments of great freedom. When we are most at ease, our imagination is usually able to run wild, grasping at those obscure notions which would have otherwise gone undiscovered amidst stress. Now given, I know that human ingenuity and creativity have flourished within contexts of stress and trial. But for the most part, I think you probably see the point I’m trying to convey: when we are the most liberated, the most free from constraints, we are, many times, situated in a context which augments our ability to be free, to be creative, and to live well.
Aren’t we safe to say that the world of technology aids in creating this context? Upon first glance, I would be tempted to say, without reservation, “yes.” I mean seriously. Have you seen how liberated and free our society has become since technology’s dawn in modernity? Hands-free cell phones, wireless laptops, cordless video game controllers, cars which now ignite at the press of a button (no key turning required…that may have been too hard I guess), commercial airliners, mechanized creations which now do most of our agricultural and industrial work, software which streamlines and hastens the writing and communication of our own language, and most other contemporary technological developments you can name all attest to the high degree to which we have been liberated to do what we want to do? Right? We are now freer than ever before to concentrate on what we want to concentrate on, to indulge in activities which foster our creative spirits, to sigh a “sigh of relief” that we no longer have to sow and harvest crops over half the year. Instead of wasting three hours writing a handwritten letter to a friend, we can write an identical letter in thirty minutes using our computer keyboard (or maybe even this diminished time is grossly over-exaggerated in light of the voice recognition software which currently exist) and then spend the two hours and thirty minutes we’ve been freed to possess to catch up on other leisure activities or maybe even those of the non-leisure variety. What freedom!
But alas, I am confused. Technology, as was mentioned today, many times seems to leave us less free than we were before we found it. How many times have you just sat down to do what you wanted to do and then the phone rang, or a text beeped, or a Facebook chat icon popped up behind the frame you were working in, or an e-mail sidetracked you for over an hour? I think you get my point. And that’s our current technology on its good days. What about on its bad days? How many times has technology failed you, wrenching from you your freedom, and royally fouled up your entire day, or week, or maybe month? What about the dreaded, “Microsoft has failed to recover your document” phrase? What about that time your alarm clock batteries died and you missed an entire day’s worth of appointments or that time your car broke down and you lost an entire half-week’s worth of time trying to get the thing fixed? Modern technology, it would seem, works to free and constrict the human race in ways our ancestors would have considered absolutely farcical. Sometimes we are so shackled to the “freedoms” allotted by our technology that we aren’t really free at all. Amidst the freedom and entitlement to new horizons which technology proffers us, we must continually struggle with those byproducts and failures which recurrently plague it. Borgmann may sympathize with this view. But I don’t want to sound overly condemnatory of technology. I’m not. I really do enjoy our technologically adept society. But we must think about our ways of coping and relating with technology and the greater, natural world around us. The subject at least deserves more thought.
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