More techno-musings

In the post about losing my brain, I thought out loud about how I am trying to bridge the technological gap, appreciate the modern-day devices, and not lose my sanity in the meantime.

This post is just a few additional thoughts on the same subject.

I have often asked myself, "Why bother with all of the gizmos? Why trust the digital doo-dads?"

Here are a couple reasons which keep popping up on the browser of my brain.

First and foremost, my children are growing up with microchips embedded in every area of their existence! They seem to know inherently how to type, text, scroll, swipe, and surf.

I need to keep up with my kiddos! I need to feel comfortable in this terrain, treacherous as it may seem. Even if I don't qualify to be a tour guide, I can at least go along for the ride. It really is the future, and I can foresee problems for people who insist on driving their horse-drawn carriages on the highways of today.

Convenience is key, and part of the miracle of modern technology is the fact that what would, in the past, require a library can now be held in the palm of my hand. My piles of notebooks are now neatly in my back pocket! And I have to admit that all those notebooks can get lost, too, just like my digital things disappeared. Same level of frustration regardless of format.

Finally, when I consider the awesome and amazing advancements mankind is making in this realm of information science, it builds my faith in God! If we mere mortals can manage to create such incredible items as computers, it helps me see how God can be so omniscient and omnipotent... He just might use a big mainframe!!! I don't really know, of course, and have no desire to blaspheme by pondering on it too long, but in my case, my faith grows as I realize that God really is capable of far more than I am, and I don't have to worry about the "how" -- I can see little hints about the possible ways as I see how mankind is figuring out bits and pieces of it, one step at a time.

An example to illustrate this last thought is the Urim and Thummim, the means by which Joseph Smith Jr. translated the Book of Mormon. People of his era could not conceive of such a device, and even now, when we read descriptions of it, we might not be able to see how it could have been a gadget-of-the-eternal-dimension. However, considering that the people of the early 1800s would not be able to use comparison words, "It is like a little iPod" because, of course, they had never been exposed to anything even vaguely similar to an iPod.

Anyway, overall, my conversion to using technology is slow. It is not always steady. I suffer setbacks. Yet, I am consistently aware of the need to overcome those hurdles, buckle up, and keep my pedal on the metal as I try to merge with the traffic on the information super-highway!