Life After Blogs
Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
Well, a long time ago, I embraced what seemed to me to be one of life’s essential credos: We cope because we have no alternative.
There are alternatives, of course. You can fall in a heap; bat your eyelashes (if short, attractive, female and manipulative) and get others to cope for you; weep, wail, gnash your teeth and succumb to chaos; change your name and run away; or if all else fails, drop dead. But these possibilities struck me as even less palatable than coping, and I’ve never found reason to change my mind.
So if one day I found myself computerless, I’d cope. It’s happened before. If you live in the sticks, computer doctors aren’t thick on the ground, so if your computer’s sick, it has to make an appointment like anyone else. And it could happen again anytime now (pause while I touch wood) unless I win lotto (note to self: buy a ticket) and replace my current laptop with something younger, fitter and more spritely. (It’s OK, dear computer, we both know age is a beautiful thing.)
I wouldn’t like it, of course. I don’t tweet, use Facebook once in a blue moon and talk to family on the phone, but the internet helps prevent me from becoming a gaga old lady (I hope) and I’d be forced to buy the newspaper which would be a terrible waste of trees – although it would mean I could do the crosswords.
Writing, though… My heart sinks. Writing (anything, as long as I enjoy it) is my chief entertainment. I could write by hand, but the chances of sorting the wheat from the chaff, as it were, once I’ve written, overwritten, faffed about, edited, rewritten and refaffed aren’t great. And even if I succeeded, what then? Weighty tomes listing markets, half of them defunct since publication? More weighty tomes listing competitions, but no way of reading winning entries (which give you some idea of what they wanted, although why they wanted it sometimes still a mystery).
On the other hand, who knows? In my life without a computer, I might be supremely fit thanks to endless walks, highly erudite from reading obscure classics (the library is very small), an expert on the local area having visited every nook and cranny, and a moving force in the community having attended every function…
No. Scrub the last one. If that’s what it comes down to, I’ll drop dead instead.
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I’m sure I’d cope too. But I don’t want to. I totally agree with you … but I really want my technology. It’s almost as good as wings . Or a spine that works.
Even a working spine doesn’t always take you to places that keep the brain working as well, which is far more important!
I like your spirit. It’s the best attitude.
It’s got me through a lot of sticky spots – and besides, I think I’d feel stupid if I fell in a heap!
Just have to keep it up.