Luxurious
This is part of my experiment to write regularly and publish every day with the help of 365 Days of Writing Prompts. Today’s prompt: “What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?”
Here I am, facing a seemingly self-contradictory question.
By definition, a luxury is something that you can live without. Otherwise, it would have been called a necessity. Even many basic services that we take for granted are technically luxuries. Electricity? Without it, I can use electronics, which would be a huge inconvenience and I cannot even do by work-related programming, but there is no way I would die because of that. Running water? Without it, I can carry water somewhere and filter it if necessary. I would take fewer showers, the place would be less clean, and I would spend time getting water somewhere, but I would not die because of that either. Transportation? Again, it would be very inconvenient without it, but I could bike or even walk to the few places that I must go to. A roof over my head? Without it, my life would be tough, but even if I cannot crash on someone’s couch, I am sure I can somehow get by just like the many who are doing it by necessity. On the flip side, do I want these luxuries even though I do not require them in order to survive? You bet!
There are so many luxuries, those that I currently have or not, that I can live without and still live with reasonable comfort: a very nice car, a very big house, etc. However, if I have to write about one luxury that I figuratively cannot live without, i.e. I rely on it very much, I would write about computer technology. Yes, I think that is a good thing. No, the following is not an apology or a confession about how much I indulge in technology like some drug.
I rely on technology to do my job, which is software development. So what? It is an interesting job that I think matter. If I cannot rely on technology, then I would have ended up with another job, such as a “traditional” engineer. To be honest, that job would have likely been less interesting or enjoyable, especially without technology. Making calculations with slide rules or basic calculators? Make documents with typewriters and deal with its significant limitations, e.g. having to use white-outs for typos, and having to start a new page from scratch if there are significant amounts of edits?
I rely on technology to overcome my tendencies to be disorganized. So what? I used to often forget about meetings that I needed to attend, deadlines that I needed to meet, etc. Now I do not, thanks to calendars that are synchronized across my home computer. If my office chair feels too comfortable or if I am too focused on a task, a reminder alerts me to get up and go to my meeting.
I rely on technology to read and write, often when I need to kill some time. Just like many people, there is a lot of idle time in my life: waiting for the bus, waiting for the bus to take its sweet time to travel to my destination, waiting in line for the cashier or the server, etc. Without phones (and before smartphones became popular), I ended up twiddling my thumbs, figuratively. Having a phone means I can be productive, reading and even writing with that otherwise-idle time. Not constantly staring at the traffic or the long checkout line lowers my stress too.
Reliance is not a bad word. The average person used to spend most of their time producing food, carrying water from rivers or wells, etc. They had so little time for anything else. Nowadays, most of us take on our specialties while we rely on food being available when we are at a restaurant or a supermarket. The average person used to do a bit of everything. Nowadays, so much more can be accomplished with the division of labor. Many of us spend so much time working on our specialized positions, and we rely on our paycheck to arrive every now and then after someone else makes the arrival happen.
There is so much criticism about how we rely on technology. Every day, some media asks yet again the useless rhetorical question of whether we have “over-reliance” on technology. They ask questions such as: What if the power goes out? What if you do not have your phone with you? What if you have to use paper and pencil? Sure, it is nice to have backup plans, for technology or not. I do not get why they have to dwell on the worst-case scenarios. Sure, if I cannot type, I can always resort to writing, even though I can never handwrite as fast as I type, and my handwriting is horrible. If I cannot use my online calendar, I can resort to writing down events on paper (which I never managed to keep up-to-date) or memorizing (which I never managed to keep remembering everything). But why can’t I use the right tool for the right job just because I might be seen as relying on technology?
To me, technology is one of those luxuries. I can live with it, but I do not want to, and I am more than okay with that.
