Crash

My laptop crashed a few days before Christmas so I've been silent in my blog and Facebook and it's been quite liberating. I've been recording daily expenses on a spreadsheet and post-crash realize I don't need to because I already know the daily and monthly average anyway. Facebook, while useful for communication, getting news about family and friends, sending urgent messages, is really something I could do much less hours of because it's a bad form of hypnosis going through other people's photos and updates instead of actually being with others. I missed posting our Palawan family vacation pictures but then that can wait plus I have FB-obsessed relatives who post pictures the instant they are taken. I miss blogging and when days and weeks pass, the things in my head that I meant to write about dissipate like mist, thus the last ultra-short entries.

 

Losing all the programs, data, photos and documents was not as big a deal as I thought because it was time for a detoxifying clean-up, a simplification of life. I log on nothing more than the necessary minutes in my husband's and my brother, Bobby's laptop and that's enough. Using other people's computer makes one more conscious. You can't linger and extend above what's polite even though you could abuse the goodness of family.

I've also been extremely bothered with the current compulsion to capture everything on iphones, ipads, digital cameras and to express everything over the world wide web. My dad, for example, drives me a wee bit crazy because he wants to take pictures of everything -- not even the candid or artistic kind but posing as a group for the camera where all the pictures end up looking the same with faces looking straight ahead with merely a changing backdrop -- like you can photoshop these pictures and it won't matter. Pictures with famous personalities give him and my stepmom a veritable high. Each person gets an adrenaline rush a different way and we must accept and respect each person's quirk. However, an over-abundance of photos does not work for me because it takes away the enjoyment and mystery of the moment, much like spending too much time online or on the computer doing things that can be reduced so we don't escape reality. It takes away the power of the moment, commodifying it, even cheapening it, identical boxes in a dizzying sea of supermarket shelves.

It bothers me seeing groups of people sharing a meal while the individuals are texting away. It bothers me that people are spending more and more time in front of the screen, typing instead of talking. It bothers me that many times, I too, want to get away to bask in the ease and comfort of my own non-threatening laptop because it's too much trouble being with people. We all need breaks from the maddening crowd but if the breaks are too long, it could be dangerous. We're missing out on something and it could be our life.