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[imagist3 at mac.com (Lottermoser George)]

The Last of a Dying Breed

By Tony Long| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Dec, 07, 2006

The Luddite

An old friend of mine died recently. Well, I mean he wasn't an "old  
friend." He was in his late 70s (which I think still qualifies as  
"old") and he was a friend, even though I was privileged to know him  
for only five or six years. Still, his passing leaves a pretty big  
gap in my life, and I think I know why.

John was a dabbler, a sort of Renaissance man, if you will. And you  
just don't see a whole lot those around anymore, not in this age of  
narrowly defined interests. He was a courtly man, a retired cab  
driver who thought of himself as an artist. He was an accomplished  
painter. He could sculpt. He wrote poetry, which wasn't very good,  
and prose, which was top notch. He played some classical guitar and  
fooled around with the piano. He was a lifelong scuba diver who  
hunted abalone up the coast and had once been a competitive swimmer.  
He traveled the world several times over. He spoke a couple of  
languages. He was married three or four times. (He never got the hang  
of domesticity apparently, but he always spoke fondly of his exes.)

He was one of those larger-than-life guys who always made you smile  
when he hove into view.

But he never learned how to use a computer. What's more, he never had  
any interest in learning. For John, life existed "out there," not on  
a screen. He never owned a cell phone, or any phone, for that matter.  
Didn't have a TV. Probably never heard of an iPod. But he was one of  
the most interesting people I've ever known.

I think what made John so interesting, beyond the adventures he had  
and the great stories he loved to tell, was that there was always  
momentum to his life. He could make a lot out of a little. His days  
were full and I'll wager that, after Viagra came along, his nights  
were pretty busy, too. He personified the active over the passive. He  
was a doer, not a watcher.

Which is probably the biggest reason John didn't care about  
computers. Yes, they're efficient and good for business, if business  
is what you care about. But sitting at a computer when you don't have  
to is to be cripplingly passive, even if you're playing the  
bloodiest, most maniacal shooter game ever. Sorry, podnah, but that  
doesn't make you Billy the Kid. You're just a couch potato with  
twitchy fingers.

Computers have changed the nature of the workplace, the nature of  
work itself. This is the information age so a lot of us are cubicle- 
bound and tethered to the screen, whether we like it or not. It's  
also the age of specialization. You gotta work to live so unless  
you've cultivated a rare skill -- like you can really hit a curveball  
or something -- there's a good chance you'll wind up behind a desk.  
And on that desk, inevitably, will be a computer.

Which makes it really important for your balance and well-being to  
get out into the world in your free time and do something -- anything  
-- that doesn't involve some kind of software.

The physical toll of computer overuse is well documented. And while  
I'm unaware of any statistical data supporting my thesis that sitting  
in front of a computer for more than a few hours a day is spiritually  
draining, anecdotal evidence abounds. You just have to look around  
you, at a society growing more dysfunctional, discourteous and  
disconnected every day. There are a lot of reasons for this, of  
course, but technology that discourages real human contact is  
certainly a prime contributor.

We are social animals. We are meant to see each other, speak with  
each other, touch each other, smell each other. "Connecting" online  
with people you never actually see face-to-face doesn't count. If  
that's what passes for "community" in the 21st century, well, poor us.

Should we be more like John? Sure, if you can swing it. If you're  
resourceful enough and not materialistic you might have a shot, but  
the world has changed since John was young. It's hard to poke around  
in the interesting corners of life when you're under the gun to make  
as much money as possible just to stay afloat.

Pity. We'd be so much better off.
Tony Long is copy chief at Wired News.

Regards,
George Lottermoser
george@imagist.com



On Dec 8, 2006, at 9:45 AM, Walt Johnson wrote:

> If any of us really valued our time we'd put a couple of rounds in  
> these forking computers and go fishing. :-)