Everyone who knows me well knows that I’m a fairly computer oriented person. Many of my hobbies involve computers, and when I’m not participating in those activities I’m spending 8 hours a day minimum at work with my face buried in a computer screen. Because of this predisposition, I wrote, a while back, about life as if it was an all encompassing computer application, which I entitled Life 2.0. This, ironically, is not an addendum to that post, but rather a rebuttal. A few significant events have sparked my renewal of interest in this topic recently; events that I have been hesitant to share, because they very much require a feeling of comfort and sense of ease among other people be present before I felt comfortable to share with the outside world.
The first major event is centered down south, in Oxford. The Sister sat myself, the Mom, and a few friends, the Girl included, down in the Mom’s living room the last time that we travelled down for a football game, to announce a major bit of news. When she announced that she was pregnant with the baby due mid-spring, and that her and the Future-Brother-In-Law were getting married. I’d like to say that everyone was really shocked, but the sister is a really bad secret keeper, and the Girl called it before the announcement was even made. Nethertheless, while everyone wasn’t shocked, they were happy, and that’s what is most important. So while I’m down in Mississippi between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, I’ll be serving as the Sister’s best man, and the Girl will get to go to the first wedding in a long time that she didn’t have to take a part in planning.
The second major event is infinitely more personal. About a month ago, the Girl and I, after some serious reflection on where we were in our relationship, and where we wanted to be in the future, decided to move in together. We’ll be moving in to a two bedroom, two bath apartment at Camden at Fairfax Corner in early February. To say that this decision was difficult for us would be the understatement of my lifetime up to this point. Just our families and a few close friends have heard the news up until now, and reactions have run the gamut from happiness and excitement to concern, but the Girl and I did not come to this decision lightly, and we’re comfortable in it, and are ready to move forward, as happy as ever.
Which brings me to my point. Life, is, obviously, not a computer application. Things change, often for the worse, and luckily, as in my case lately, for the better as well. It’s unpredictable, and never monotonous. But we’ve been so well trained by computers, and by technology, and by the other trappings of American success that we often forget to stop and do simple things that bring our life so much joy. Actually, and more accurately, that define our lives and make them what they are. I woke up on a Wednesday morning not more than a month ago, and turned twenty-nine years old. And while I may be forced to spend the remainder of my professional career in front of a computer, pecking away at progress reports or organizational charts, it won’t define me, and it won’t define my life. Nothing that I experience via technology, will make me as happy watching my sister get married, or watching the Girl’s face light up at the thought of us sharing our lives with one another, and nothing that technology provides me will make me as sad as the real disappointments that I’ve had in my life either, but that’s ok.
Which isn’t to say that technology isn’t valuable, or doesn’t serve it’s purpose. It should be used, though, to enhance our lives, and not to define them. Which is why I want, once again, start writing more frequently. And I will, because I’ve been doing a lot of living lately, and I want to share it with those whose lives my life will enhance, and whose lives my life is enhanced by.
