Sometimes I
wonder what it would be like to go back to living the simple lives humans lived
before we had all this technology. It doesn’t take long for me to discard such
a romantic notion; it would be horrible. Yes, my dismissal of it is in part due
to the fact that I love video games – not to mention the easy access to writing
research offered by the internet – but the living conditions that accompany the
lack of technology are dreadful. Yet, the dream of going back to live a simpler
life keeps on resurfacing, and not just in me.
When such
ideas keep resurfacing, it’s good to pay attention to them, because they tend
to be telling us something about our environments. Frequently, it’s our brains
trying to find a way to change something, though it doesn’t necessarily know
what. In this case, I believe the important part isn’t so much the idea of
going back in time, but the idea of a simpler life – more notably, a life not
as cluttered with the technology that our existence now revolves around.
As much as
technology has done for us, and as wonderful as it is, there is no doubt that
it has made life vastly more complicated. Almost everything we need to do is
easier now, but there’s another type of strain the technology seems to put on
us, seemingly offsetting it. We have a responsibility to the technology – to keep
it functioning, to continually learn how to use it as it updates and evolves,
and to be available when someone tries to contact us through it. In addition,
now that we have instant access to the whole world and most of the knowledge in
it, many people feel a responsibility to know what’s going on in the world at
all times – as if, simply by having that information, they could somehow make a
difference.
I think
technology has put a pressure on us that humans have never had to deal with
before, and that has awakened in many of us a desire to go back – back to a
simpler life. However, that simpler life wasn’t better; in many ways, it was
worse. At any rate, backwards isn’t ever the correct direction to travel – we must
always keep moving forwards.
Why should
we go back in time to when we had less technology when technology makes
everything so much easier? Instead, we should take advantage of what we have
learned, and use it to push forward toward that simple life we want. We’ve
already made life easier with technology; now it’s time to adapt what we have
made to give us the lives we want. It’s either that, or we wait for our
evolution to catch up to an industry that is advancing faster that we can keep
up with.
Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.
Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.
If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.
