What’s the point then?

A computer, a technology, should never be a tether. It should be a tool to enhance knowledge, productivity, and pleasure.

To use a tool properly, one must learn to get by, to get about one’s business without it.

That’s why, post-shower, I am making this hand-written entry with my PC turned off.

There is only the pen, the paper, the ticking of the clock, and the sound of a radio coming from the other room.

Here I am, at my task, the task of writing, with more pleasure, ease, and sentience.

There is no song, no YouTube video, no endless podcast, there are no headphones at all. I do not drown passively among other people’s voices. I select what’s relevant from memory.

I do not fear that my thoughts will be lost, that they will suffer in quality because they are a scrawl in afternoon light rather than coordinates on a glowing screen.

I feel no unease at the knowledge that digitally augmented ken, all the world’s libraries, and forums, are one further step away.

I am in fact as free and secure as the crow that just flew overhead.

Because I have made it possible, more likely to see him.

I have but to swivel in my squeaky office chair to boot the machine. Should I fancy to share my insights electronically.

Perhaps soon I will. But not before I visit a long neglected couch to read a hand-held book.

Such is the exercise I choose to assure a firmer grip upon my faculties.

Through this I find my freedom, my mobility expanded, and my electric bill a touch more modest.