nightride

I remember I led a happy and quiet life about ten years ago. That was before the gadget revolution. The only device I owned at the time was a walkman. Not the original, I remember, it was an Aiwa (today's subsidiary of Sony), but you wouldn't call it anything else at the time, 'cos that was also a time of virtually no lawsuits about technology. It had a voice recorder and everything you could get at the time and I still have the precious recordings from the time of high school.

So that was good. And then, there was a video camera. A mate of mine had one, so we shot few videos here and there. And again, that was fantastic, 'cos I don't know of anybody else from that time that would have a single second recorded.

And afterwards, the Internet. That was a shell-driven UNIX that I had a chance to experience for the first time. It was a bit fiddly and required a bit of knowledge to get around, but I could send emails to a friend in Germany! That was just magical. I went to an "IT laboratory" at school from time to time to send a message through half a continent. And it would cost me nothing! And he replied in ten minutes!

Next came the real graphical Internet, the Web. I still have Netscape 1.22 somewhere on a CD. Could you believe there were pictures? Obviously, I had to type www.playboy.com and see what happens. Oh, gosh, let's not go into details. Within a month, I had my own website.

Oh, have just I mentioned a CD? I got a collection of old vinyls going back to Elvis and Pink Floyd times, then dozens of tapes and suddenly... CD took over. And within few years, you could burn your own compilation. And make an mp3 CD. Video CD. Then DVD...

And sometime along the way, I got a mobile. I was already at Uni and the life unexpectedly changed. I was available 24 hours a day. In fact, everybody became available non-stop. Good thing was, I didn't need that funny paper notebook in my backpocket anymore, but the bad one was that I just couldn't stop; there was more and more every day. I got myself a laptop. I got a handheld PC (you'd call it PDA today, wouldn't you?). Within few years, all gadgets were wireless and then they all got blue teeth. They all became interconnected. And had to be synchronized. And sometimes they didn't work the right way so I had to learn more and more to keep things running. Never got frustrated to put them away, I spent nights installing, reinstalling, checking forums, finding drivers, formatting hard drives, starting over and over again...

Plus, not to forget digital cameras. All of a sudden, I stopped going to my favourite photo-center. I just filed the photos on a computer (or more of them), made a few copies on CD's and that was enough. And a digital video camera. I wasn't happy with the footage anymore. It all had to be edited and re-edited. Had to be burnt to a DVD. With menus. With chapters. With smooth and funky transitions. With proper soundtrack. And nothing is ever perfect, everything just needs more and more time!

And before I knew, my life started drifting away. I spent more time checking the emails, browsing favourite news and blog sites, staying online with buddies on instant messengers, text messaging, checking voicemail, replying, forwarding, sorting, saving, recording, transferring, burning, copying, editing, deleting, recovering... And it could never stop.

I guess I could stop. I'm only cutting my life short with all these gadgets. My friends could see me more often instead of chatting with me over the net. I could print some photos for the family instead of handing them a CD. I don't need to maintain three websites. I don't need half a dozen active email accounts. I don't need to be online and synchronized.

I could find a work as a gardener. I would do just fine. I could live unplugged. Or could I?