Pretending to be in Niger?

Just wanted to say that the reason you haven't heard from me for some days is not because I've spent the past week buried under the sheets of my oh-so-comfortable bed (although I've done a good job catching up on that needed sleep; I've even started waking up by myself in the mornings - no alarm ticking off!) but because the network has been down at our apartment, and I haven't bothered to go to the office just to blog. Although I've been dying to catch up!

So hopefully, tomorrow I will get to call the company that is supposed to supply us with a PERMANENT broadband connection, but in the meantime, I will just continue to pretend that I am in Niger and that technology is a rare and exclusive luxury - never to be taken for granted.

Ishtar

When technology breaks down...

Copyright Eden Foundation 2007

There are a few times when I wish I lived a simple life in the middle of nowhere, oblivious to all notion of technology, concentrated only on caring for my family and spending time with the people that mattered to me.

Today was one such day. For the past two days, I've been concentrated on my studies, working on a linguistic essay about how a global language comes forth and what the consequences are for all non-native speakers. My alarm went off far too early this morning and I got out of bed, eager to resume my line of thoughts, only to find that my computer had broken down some time during the night and would just not be turned on again.

I have no idea what happened - in fact, I really don't care. A two year old (expensive!) Acer computer suddenly dies and my life is supposedly threatened since I rely on my digital data to about a 100%. No, I did not stress myself up because life is just too short, but yes, I did wish that I was a very poor person living in a remote area who did not have to rely on any technical equipment that despite its grand potential gives up on life without any cause whatsoever and causes you far more stress than it is supposed to relieve you from. Now these are the days when I wish that I had grown up as a little child in a sea of sand, spending my days playing with home-made toys, picking Eden fruits in the fields and taking life at face value.

Copyright Eden Foundation 2007

I know I am fortunate to have any material wealth at all and should not complain. I know that computers are very useful tools (I would not be able to blog without one, for starters...) and that you should never rely on them even though you inevitably do. I know that money can be re-earned, a new computer purchased at the cost of time, perseverance and other planned purchases (I know, something has got to go...). I am also aware of the fact that despite all the time that is consumed trying to figure out these little machines, they do have a purpose and that I would never deliberately choose a life without technology as long as those purposes remained important enough.

I do wish though - from time to time - that I was unaware of all our society's great technological advances and that I lived in a simple world, oblivious of their existence. But now that would be one nice little utopian society, wouldn't it? A true garden of Eden...

Ishtar