Do you ever feel that your life is completely tied to technology? I suspect you do because it is discussed everywhere these days, all the time. No doubt our collective worry began with the wheel, and then the car and then television but it seems to have amped up recently. The observation has become so commonplace that we typically laugh it off as though being tied to electric-digital-online everything is an unquestionable new order to the world. After all, it’s not like we can unplug from the grid just like that.
I know I couldn’t.
I panic if I misplace my phone and get all anxious when its battery life sinks below 10 percent and I am out without my charger. Periodically, I become so aware of the hours wasted online and on certain sites in particular that I clean house. I log on to each of them (not that many!) one by one and without looking at any photos or emails I promptly delete the accounts; delete, delete, delete. A few months down the road however, I am back online; create, create, create. Meeting people via technology is so much easier.
Of course this illustration is just scratching the surface. The broader and deeper implications of such a tech-driven existence are worth thinking about. If it is a subject that interests you or if you would simply like to inject a fresh point of view about the creep of technology into your life and maybe into your gay life in particular then maybe this will be of interest.
We Are Not Robots is a talk by Richard Louv happening at the San Diego Museum of Man Saturday, April 20 from 6-8 p.m. The subject is Reconnecting with Our Humanity and Louv will expand upon his approach to a happy and healthier society through the natural world around us; a theme he has explored in his books which include Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.
What’s the art link you might be wondering? Well, the presentation is a partnership between the Museum of Man and local literary arts organization Write Out Loud. It’s part of Write Out Loud’s The Big Read project which was recently launched with a focus on the explosive and controversial themes in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451.
All is not doom and gloom however as Louv will explain a heartening vision of the future in which our lives are as immersed in nature as they are in technology. So, let’s close Facebook for an hour or so, log off the man4man sites, power down our smart phones and head over to the museum in Balboa Park where I hear they have flowers and trees!
