When your computer dies, it’s a big reminder how interconnected we all are. This is exactly what happened to me a week ago, and it was quite traumatic.
I needed a new computer for quite some time, and in frustration late one night I finally ended up pretty much beating it to death. Okay, don’t panic, just get another computer, move everything over from the old one.
Easier said than done, and it’s taken me over a week to get everything moved over to the next one, and finally get the last bugs ironed out.
The day I wrote this story, I had to spend three hours of my life on the phone with three different tech support people to get my e-mail issues straightened out, which I guess isn’t so bad because last week I wasted six hours of my life I didn’t need anymore trying to get things straightened out.
This has truly made me afraid to go to hell when I die, because I think it will be something like waiting on the phone for eternity for “help” from tech support, much of which made things even worse.
I know, I know, anyone with a computer has gone through this, but too much of it in a row can put you in a really ugly state.
It’s not just because as a writer I need my computer, but it really is a rude reminder how much we need to be connected to everything via the ‘Net for news, entertainment, even tracking down trivial little pieces of information. (Actually, the net is an incredible resource for trivial pieces of information, as we all know).
This all reminded me of a cartoon I saw in Mad Magazine where someone lost their wallet, and when you lose your ID, money, and other important info, you practically cease to exist. In some weird way, I was having abandonment issues because all of the sudden I was cut off from the world. This really started to get genuinely depressing, and when little simple things that could bring you back end up taking hours or days, it adds even more insult to injury.
So finally I’m almost completely back up and running, reconnected to the world, and much faster than before. But funny enough, I’ve been working much slower. Yeah my old computer was broken down and ready to die, and it had barely any storage space left in it, but I now laugh thinking about having to write as fast as I could before it crashed. I’d knock things out much faster because there wasn’t much time to waste. Now I’ve got hours and hours of battery power without any worry of running out, and I’m not thinking as fast as I used to, trying to crystalize my thoughts as quick as I can before the clock runs out.
Still, once everything goes a week or two without an accident or having to lose more time dealing with tech support, I think I’ll get very happily used to the speed and efficiency that comes with a new computer and a faster modem.
That’s supposed to be the idea in the first place, that all this is supposed to make our lives easier and more efficient, but as we all know with technology, Murphy’s Law often applies. Every day I’m not trying to fix something that went wrong because it could brings me a lot of relief, so every day you’re not plunged into computer hell is definitely a good day.
