I’ve definitely bought into high technology hook, line and sinker. I use the latest generation iPhone cellphone and use it to listen all my music, track all my appointments, get instant push mail, update my blogs, check the weather, check local news, find nearest restaurants and call ahead, navigate to any location or address, check traffic, make phone calls, text messages, instant messaging, do shopping, keep my journal/diary, use alarm clock to wake up, use sound machine to help fall asleep, and depend upon iPhone find feature to allow me to find my phone via GPS if I ever misplace it.

It’s all very cool, and gives me a sense that I’ve got my world all together. That I’m the most prepared for all types of unexpected contingencies, because I’m covered with a multitude of technological solutions on hand at any time.  So when something goes wrong it’s surprising how disconcerted I become.  Maybe it’s because my full time job is often doing technical support for computer problems.

A couple nights ago I was bothered because I noticed that my high speed internet connection was getting slow.  Not so long ago I bought into Verizon’s FIOS internet service that promised to be super fast.  But I had been noticing that with time it seemed to be getting slower and slower.  After much fussing around I fixed the problem by turning off and back on the device that provides our wireless internet service and for unexplained reasons the internet was moving faster than ever.  A couple months earlier I had similar technical problems and had to disconnect and reconnect another box to get things working.  And now today the AT&T cell phone service to my iPhone was completely out.  I called customer service and they confirmed they were aware of the problem, apologized, and then asked me in a bright cheery tone if I felt satisfied with the service.  Was I satisfied?  I felt a disconnect occuring within me.  I complained about the lack of service hoping they would suddenly stay on the line to fix things for my phone, said I was satisfied with everything outside of the fact that I had no cell phone service and hung up.

But the anxiety in me was niggling and my techno mind was whirring away for a solution.  I then played with a setting on my phone that disabled something called 3G and suddenly things came back to life.  I felt the anxiety go down as I had both solved the problem and discovered a remedy for the future should my phone have the same problem.  But there are so many things that can technologically go wrong and my sense is that as time goes on and computer technology gets more complex things will only get worse (read https://www.tiredmiddleagedman.com for blog on technological woes).

So it brings me back to spirituality.  I think it’s very good to be able to hold on to something that is 100% reliable or at least very close to that.  Technology is not that.  Technology offers convenience like being able to do all those things I described I can do in the first paragraph.  But it’s almost like it gets me addicted and then at times without warning, usually during the times of greatest need, breaks down and fails to work, leaving me with feelings of inadequacy, anxiety from loss of control in my life.  Going from OK to feeling inadequate and anxious from a piece of technology that some could argue is just a toy to occupy my time, is a problem.  I’m so naked and vulnerable.  At times I think about just start unplugging from technology.  Lose my ability to keep in contact with people anywhere and anytime and go back to a time when there were no cell phones or maybe a time when you just wrote on paper and sent things thru the mail and otherwise just did things as you went along.

I have nothing much to add about the Source today.  I can’t say I had much of a connection today.  The techno-anxiety I described above kind of got in the way.  I did feel the Source most strongly when I was listening to Virginia play and sing on the piano.  There is definitely something special and magical listening to live intimate music being performed by someone you know more intimately than any other person in the world, especially if that person happens to be talented enough to record music that can sell.

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