The Great Diversion
We are all overwhelmed with technology.
No question, it brings much convenience; this very website exists because of it.
But does it all have to be to the extent it is?
As an example, and despite our preference for something simpler, every day we have to deal with three different internet servers, check the way our work looks on a couple different laptops, as well as iPhones and Droids and tablets. We use older software like FrontPage and the newer stuff like WordPress -- each with radically different elements that have to be learned.
Each server has codes; so does each control panel for each server; and then there are the codes for the customer portals.
There are passwords for the various e-mails (some make you use capitals or symbols that foil any attempt at consistency and remembering them), and varying ways each commentary section is handled. Isn't simplicity God's Way?
You remember how it has evolved: first dial-up, then digital phone or cable and modems, soon routers -- all with different technologies that had to be learned. There was this browser and that browser. They have different ways of "bookmarking." There is your "IP." There were first those lumbering desktops and monitors, then laptops: all with new buttons and variances. Then the IPads and Fires. Plug-ins. Widgets. There are the various websites to shop; again, search methods and passwords. There are various anti-viral software; each unique. Malware? Worms? Firewalls? There are different ways different systems handle (or don't handle) spam. There was instant messaging -- nothing compared now to Facebook and its arcane caverns (no one understands what a "reach" really means, including the folks at Facebook).
It took the FBI weeks to break into an iPhone.
There is Kindle. There is Amazon.
Each has its own menu and commands -- causing high usage of time simply learning to navigate each one.
Everyone goes through this.
The other day, we saw a woman in her eighties using an iPad for the Mass readings.
There's Bluetooth. There are different phones. There are USB ports and DVDs and RSS feeds and Instagram and Twitter. They are constant preoccupations -- and diversions.
Never mind trying to figure out the new TV remote -- or how to use the thermostat.
What they divert us from especially is relating directly to each other.
They have created, this unending torrent of tech, fortresses around each of us.
They have caused tension and misunderstanding.
They eat up time that could be spent praying.
Humans no longer answer phones.
We are dehumanized.
There are misunderstandings: What seems nasty may not have been intended that way.
Texts and e-mails often seem short because they are short.
Our attention spans have been reduced to words that are fleeting. We stand not on terra firma but an electronic vapor. It's eats up time that could be spent praying. Even techs don't fully understand their own systems. It can be wonderful. Even the Vatican promotes aspects. But:
At least some of this is in the devil's plan. Confusion is his hallmark. So is diversion (and division). Look around you at how totally constructed and dependent our society is now on technology -- on electrons, on gigabytes, on "clouds" -- and clouds, we should know, no matter how big, can quickly fade.
--MHB
[resources: Retreat, Michael Brown in St-Louis-southern-Illinois, April 23 and Retreat: Cherry Hill, New Jersey]
[Note: Spirit Daily pilgrimage, Guadalupe]
Spirit Daily on Twitter Facebook
Donations: we need and appreciate them!