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Thoughts On Technology And Change

Jun 22, 2016
by Caroline Miller
redudancy, Remember This, Robert Walser, Technology, Window's 10
4 Comments

Browsing through a recent edition of The Baffler, I came across an… I don’t know what. Was it an essay, a poem?  The piece consisted of 300 words strung together without a period and closed with, “Remember there is life and there is death…” (“Remember This,” by Robert Walser, The Baffler #30, 2016 pg. 58.)  I might have added, “And confusion in between.”

In my life, much of the “in between,” I stuff with angst even though, as writer/poet Robert Walser insists, that space is also filled with silent mountains and clouds that light up the sky like glowing flames. By nature, I’m a worrier.  Right now,  I’m dreading an upgrade to Windows 10 and am too busy reading manuals to see the sky. 

Many of us have reason to fear technology.  It destroys jobs and diminishes the middle class.  Self-driving vehicles will eliminate the need for truck drivers and train engineers.  Their good paying jobs will disappear with nothing to replace them.  Examples of the coming obsolescence  are legion.   

sunset clouds

wallpaperwidehd.blogspot.com

I have a friend, a retired banker, who marvels at the changes technology has made in her industry, so different from the way business was done 10 years ago.  Where have all the redundant people gone, she wonders.  She shares these thoughts with a fellow banker, retired, also, not because of redundancy but  because she suffers from ALS.  The woman smiles and looks down at her hands that lie useless in her lap.  One imagines she has  no fear of technology or Windows 10.  Paralysis has given her time to listen to the silent mountains. 

Life’s ironies are relentless.  A few days later, my banker friend opened her email to find the following message: “Testing my eye computer.  Hoping everyone is enjoying the great sunny day.”

A new technology had given the ALS sufferer freedom to write her thoughts without her hands.  Her words, escaping physical limitations, had bulleted through time and space to arrive as a greeting on a distant computer.  I am not surprised the woman’s first observation was about the sky. 

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4 Comments
  1. Maggi White June 22, 2016 at 8:27 am Reply
    I love the words "listen to the silent mountains" Maggi
    • Caroline Miller June 22, 2016 at 9:49 am Reply
      I love the thought too. Like the sound of silence. Thanks for dropping by, Maggi.
  2. Janet June 22, 2016 at 1:27 pm Reply
    Love this.
    • Caroline Miller June 22, 2016 at 3:50 pm Reply
      I love the word love. Thank you.

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published five novels

  • Getting Lost To Find Home
  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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