troubles with technology

So for the last year (maybe more, I'm not sure) my iMac has been nearly dead. One day it froze, the rainbow circle spinny thing spun round and around for hours (usually if I left it alone it would unfreeze) but this time it didn't so I turned the Mac off, turned it back on and a file folder with a question mark in the middle flashed constantly against a gray screen. I used google to figure out how to fix it (temporarily, come to find out), so every time this happened, which was often, I had to restart my Mac, install Snow Leopard and wait for it to start up again, which took a very long time. And this was if it worked. Most of the time it didn't work so I would have to restart the computer over and over and over again until it decided to start up or I would give up. I mean, who wants to waste time sitting in front of a computer when there are MUCH better things to be doing?

Like I said before, it's been like this for over a year and the last time my Mac was up and running was in June. It's been really frustrating having this problem, but the only reason I never took it to the apple store to get it fixed is because all of my photos and all of my music are on there and when I tried to back it all up, it didn't work.

I finally gave in and sent it along with Jeff to apple. 

The good news is they are replacing the hard drive (which was the problem) and the screen because there were some dark spots, so essentially I am getting a brand new iMac. YAY!

The bad news is they can't save any of my music or photos or files. The upside to this is that the genius guy can transfer all my music from my iPod to my quasi-new iMac, but of course non of my photos or files. The files I don't care about, but my photos... that's a bummer.

But honestly I'm at the point where it's been so long since I've seen those photos or been able to even use my Mac so it's okay. I'll get over it. I'm just very happy and grateful that I'm finally able to use my iMac instead of Dave's PC.

Jeff and I are going to pick it up today and purchase a different system to back up all of my music and current photos so that if this ever happens again, I'm covered. 

I'm just so happy that I get to see this on my desk again... working.

 

I harbor a love/hate relationship with technology. I love the advantages it gives our society, like staying connected with family & friends through email and facebook, being able to seek answers to basically any question or finding out information and news about what is going on in the world. There are a lot of advantages to the internet and technology. They have helped make things more efficient for mankind, but they have also taken up so much of our time. The purpose of technology is to make work and life more efficient so that we may have more time on our hands, more time to spend with our family and friends, more time to spend at leisure, and yet the very thing that is supposed to give us these things has actually robbed us of them.

In reading the last chapter of the book I've been studying and discussing with a group at church, The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith, Smith talks about this dilemma we face. He describes how the clock was invented by the monks to regulate their time of prayer and work, how the first public clock was erected in Cologne, Germany in 1370 to establish the hours of the work day and set curfews. The clock started to take over our natural sense of time. Throughout the centuries technology has given us "hurry sickness". It doesn't mean that we can't rush for the plane we might miss, it means that we rule our whole lives by the possibility of missing that plane, we suffer anxiety and worry over it. It's as if we'll die (not literally) if we miss that plane because it will mean wasted time. 

And of course, our time is precious to us. It's precious to us because we need to hurry home to watch that TV show, or to answer a million emails, or to blog. Our time should be precious to us because we need to hurry home to be with our family, to read with them, to prepare dinner with them, to pray with them, to laugh or to meditate alone.

I have always felt the anxiety of "hurry sickness", but I'm going to try harder to take things in, to be in the moment, to be present, to not rush through the precious moments of life.