I’m aware to have a troglodytic approach to most of very refined technological devices which have become so common and apparently indispensable nowadays, at least in our western civilization, even though not only in it.
A few days ago I found myself considering the opportunity to buy a tablet , an iPad or whatever device of that kind, since I felt a little conditioned by their rather overwhelming presence, as if going anywhere without being necessarily and constantly connected with the web was a lack of taste, a flaw… Then I came to the conclusion
that, at least for me, I really didn’t see the utility to carry around the magic tablet, in spite of its limited weight and dimensions.
I have not any account in any social network, so I’m happily free by the need to be connected all the time to check them, to update them and so on, I don’t like reading e-books and I’m still happier with horribly old-fashioned traditional good heavy book made of real paper.
When I travel, I prefer to look around me, rather than watching a film on a small screen, I deeply dislike headphones and I prefer to have music surrounding me, when it’s possible, rather than getting it strictly canalized into my two plugged ears.
I don’t get bored at all, just thinking over and paying attention to what I see, I don’t need video games to entertain me. I can live happily without sending compulsorily emails every two minutes; after all a letter takes always a certain time to arrive by mail and it’s delivered only once a day and the pleasure of waiting is a magic element which makes even more enjoyable to get what we were expecting.
Time is richness and being able to fully enjoy it without doing too many things at once makes us richer.
A few days ago I found myself considering the opportunity to buy a tablet , an iPad or whatever device of that kind, since I felt a little conditioned by their rather overwhelming presence, as if going anywhere without being necessarily and constantly connected with the web was a lack of taste, a flaw… Then I came to the conclusion
that, at least for me, I really didn’t see the utility to carry around the magic tablet, in spite of its limited weight and dimensions.
I have not any account in any social network, so I’m happily free by the need to be connected all the time to check them, to update them and so on, I don’t like reading e-books and I’m still happier with horribly old-fashioned traditional good heavy book made of real paper.
When I travel, I prefer to look around me, rather than watching a film on a small screen, I deeply dislike headphones and I prefer to have music surrounding me, when it’s possible, rather than getting it strictly canalized into my two plugged ears.
I don’t get bored at all, just thinking over and paying attention to what I see, I don’t need video games to entertain me. I can live happily without sending compulsorily emails every two minutes; after all a letter takes always a certain time to arrive by mail and it’s delivered only once a day and the pleasure of waiting is a magic element which makes even more enjoyable to get what we were expecting.
Time is richness and being able to fully enjoy it without doing too many things at once makes us richer.
I have noticed that nearly all compact cameras of new generation have an incorporated GPS, in order to have, in the data of every photo, also its exact geo-localization.
It sound like a great feature, isn’t it? But, wait a moment, is it really so fundamental for taking a good photo? It gives me a slight feeling of uneasiness the simple idea to be localized with my camera in the exact point where I’m while I take my photo.
A satellite, celestial Big Brother, is watching me, it’s calculating where I am and when, it can know everything of me, as all the web sites, which put their cookies (also the most innocent and how innocent they appear with their name of biscuits) in my computer in a way spy me, try to capture my habits, to deduce with their artificial intelligence what I could like as potential client. Of course we can try to deactivate all that which comes to us by default, but it
takes time and attention, we have to get inside all the settings like artificers who try carefully to defuse a bomb, cutting first the red wire, then the green one and hoping to have done all right…
Oh well, don’t misunderstand me, I’m deeply persuaded that a GPS navigation device is a very useful work tool
for a lot of categories of people, taxi drivers, carriers, postmen and many other who need to find a location quickly and surely for professional reasons.
But when you travel for your own leisure and you decide rightly to take time on your side, I really don’t see why you should be conditioned by a gentle and impersonal voice which tells you where you have to turn every two minutes, it’s surrealistic and also disturbing.
It sound like a great feature, isn’t it? But, wait a moment, is it really so fundamental for taking a good photo? It gives me a slight feeling of uneasiness the simple idea to be localized with my camera in the exact point where I’m while I take my photo.
A satellite, celestial Big Brother, is watching me, it’s calculating where I am and when, it can know everything of me, as all the web sites, which put their cookies (also the most innocent and how innocent they appear with their name of biscuits) in my computer in a way spy me, try to capture my habits, to deduce with their artificial intelligence what I could like as potential client. Of course we can try to deactivate all that which comes to us by default, but it
takes time and attention, we have to get inside all the settings like artificers who try carefully to defuse a bomb, cutting first the red wire, then the green one and hoping to have done all right…
Oh well, don’t misunderstand me, I’m deeply persuaded that a GPS navigation device is a very useful work tool
for a lot of categories of people, taxi drivers, carriers, postmen and many other who need to find a location quickly and surely for professional reasons.
But when you travel for your own leisure and you decide rightly to take time on your side, I really don’t see why you should be conditioned by a gentle and impersonal voice which tells you where you have to turn every two minutes, it’s surrealistic and also disturbing.
The pleasure of the trip is also the progressive discovery of an unknown landscape; a discovery which is so enjoyable to get gradually, by attempts, following your own instinct, making mistakes…
Getting lost in an unknown place when you follow a slow pace is so rewarding, you can find unexpected things which you would have never seen if you had followed the sure and strict directions of a GPS.
I can accept the partial help of a small map, it’s often difficult to read properly a map, you might turn it in your hands without finding immediately the right direction to take, you might take by mistake the opposite one and then you can find what you were not looking for in a perfect serendipity.
Getting lost like that is a form of joyful freedom. Nobody know where you are, neither you…
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