Technology 1.0

I got a Kindle for Christmas, generously given by my kids. It was something I asked for, with mixed emotions.

You see, I am a bibliophile. I like having a physical book in my hand...love the smell of a used book store. Love the feel of an old leather-bound book to the touch. I love the excitement of gently cracking the spine of a brand-new book, rather like the excitement of opening a treasure chest. (Well, at least, I assume it is like that feeling, since I've never opened a treasure chest.)

Anthropologists are fond of citing examples of how we differ from the "lower" animals. They talk about speech, and tool making, and sexual mores. How I think we differ from lower animals is that not only do we have speech and tool making but we use tool making to speak to each other, over distance and time. We can speak of philosphy and how-to instructions and stories and political thought and scientific discovery.

I can read, if I so choose, Galileo's treatises. I can look at Da Vinci's notes and drawings on manned flight. I can read the latest novel by a Swedish thriller writer. I can travel in my mind to Hogworts. Or a galaxy far, far away. Or James Bond's British intelligence agency. Or wherever and whenever I darn well please.

Yes, whales and other cetaceans can communicate over long distances. But my guess is they are either saying, "Come on over for a deep sea banquet...food plentiful here." Or "You want to see my etchings?" Or some such. But they can't communicate over time. They can't communicate with Captain Ahab's whale.

That alone is Man's/Woman's abilty.

I like reading books even when I think the author is full of shit. (I've even read Sarah Palin's book.) Even then, I can read a thought espoused by the author and say to myself, "I know better than that...this author doesn't know what s/he is talking about."

So why did I ask for a Kindle? Well, for starters, there are actually many more new books/best sellers available there, for less cost, than I can either find at my local library or at Barnes and Noble. Yes, I'm one of those geeks who is a library patron and I even go there for the books and not for the Internet access. And when I, as an environmentalist, think of how many trees are killed annually to publish all the great books and all the drek, it does make sense to send an author's thoughts through fiberoptic lines rather than Guttenburg's press.

My kids' generation will no doubt see the demise of the printed book and their kids will probably view books as something akin to how we viewed the stereopticans and buggy whips of our grandparents' generation. I tell my kids to hang on to my library after I'm gone until books gain in value as oddities of history and then sell the suckers for beaucoup bucks. It will be their inheritance.

I'm not the most technologically savvy of individuals. Even in my generation, I'm not exactly knowledgeable about all the ins and outs of computers and iPads, iPhones and Blackberries. I don't own a PDA and I don't like being so available to any yahoo who wants to contact me at any time of the day or night in any location.

I have to have my kids explain to me, when I see a device touting "3G" capabilities or gigabytes of this or that, what that all means. Because, honestly, it sounds like Swahili to me. It could be that everything I've ever learned about computers and technology has been on my own, without benefit of instruction. As a matter of fact, I've learned alot about technology by...wait for it...reading real books. Irony, that.

(Irony, according to the Black Adder, is "kinda like goldy or bronzy but made of iron.")

As I have frequently said, I don't have to know how a microwave works to heat food with one. I just need to know which buttons to push.

I worry that my kids' generation will get so used to Facebooking and texting each other that they will forget how to talk face to face, being able to read nuances of face and hands. Body language doesn't digitize very well.

And of course their kids won't have those skills in the first place. They will never know the thrill of browsing a book store or library and happening on to a book that they would never have thought would interest them. Amazon.com requires one to request the title of the book or subject matter or author's name. One can't really browse.

I'm not a Luddite. I do believe in advancing technology and its ability to enhance our lives. I don't want to go back to the good old days, which in matter of fact were the bad old days. When people died of curable diseases and missed Christmas because their horse threw a shoe and became blacksmiths because they couldn't go to college way far away.

So I keep one foot in the 21st century by reading my Kindle, while cherishing my beloved books. When I turned on the Kindle, lo and behold, the "sleep" mode uses an illuminated hand-written text as the screen saver.

Sigh.