Inconvenient life

January 14, 2019

Greetings from an inconvenient life,

I used to have a typewriter, my memory says it was an Underwood, one with a heavy steel body and giant round keys, finicky typebars and a sticky platen.  I wrote on that typewriter, and it was a real effort.  The clackety mechanics of driving the keys down and levering the imprint onto the paper involved more than just the creative inspiration that began the process.  Sometimes the keys stuck, sometimes the ribbon unspooled. Writer’s block was often a physical thing.

I would much rather be working at this computer, with all of its perks.  And when I finish this essay, it is a minor effort to move it into a forum where it will be read around the world.  It’s a wonderful thing.  But I also realize what I trade for the convenience.

Some of my friends have told me that trail running is distinctly different than running races on the road.  They talk about how running through the woods demands something more from you.  You have to be fully present, watching every step, aware of each root, hill, hole, pile of rocks, or puddle. Time shapes itself differently around you when you weave between trees, you are no longer only concentrating on running or racing, you are experiencing your environment thoroughly at the same moment.  Time passes differently.

A few weeks ago, I sat across the table from my son and discussed the value of the record player.  Not even considering the more complete sound that vinyl records produce, listening to music on a turntable is a different experience.  The process of lowering the stylus, and waiting for the hiss, the occasional static pop, anticipating the first note.  You lose the impulse to skip to the next song, or switch to a podcast.  Carson said it slowed the experience down because of the interaction; removing the vinyl from the sleeve, carefully placing it on the record player, beginning the music, turning the disc over when it was time.  The relationship between the listener and the music changes because of this process.

When my sisters come to visit, they like to drink tea.  We have a microwave which, even in its antiquated state, will heat water to boiling in a minute.  That is not the way we make tea.  We fill a tea kettle, in the same way our ancestors did, and we wait until the gentle sound of the roiling water is followed by the first insistent whistle. In the waiting there are whispered morning conversations.  While it is not exactly a ceremony, there is an interaction that has significance, purpose.  We are not separate from it.

It dawned on me how much all of these things have in common, and what value there was, what rich beauty there was, in that difference.  The link I see is that in each of these examples is that we are slowed down by the interaction so much we must focus on what we are doing.  And then there is this magic thing.

Robert Pirsig wrote that it is in the relationship between the subject and the object, the interaction, is where ‘quality’ exists.  It is a slippery thought, actually easier to understand in living it than examining it. 

Think about building a wood fire.  Kneading the dough for your bread.  Writing a note in a card you will mail.  Planting your garden. Winding the clock on the wall and setting the pendulum in motion.  Standing in your darkroom waiting for the image to appear on the paper in the tray of liquid.  The array of parts in front of you, resting until you reassemble your bike. 

We intentionally fill the moments with something that must include us.  We are fully in those moments; the inconvenience demands it.  In that experience time swells to allow all we need to happen.  We often are unaware of the hour that passes.  At the end of day full of experiences like this, we are exhausted and happy, wondering how so much could have fit into one cycle of the sun. 

There are some who may look at these things and long for a simpler time and others who roll their eyes at the idea of giving up technology for sentimentality.  I am learning we have to find ways to include the incessant progress that benefits us, and still hold on to the connection between ourselves and the world we create.

So many improvements in our lives have created more free time.  In turn we become terrible at filling that time.  Not all of us, not all the time, but you know what I mean. Circumstances have given us this tremendous freedom, and our response has been to spend it looking at memes of dogs commenting on cats or talking about the weather or complaining about the wifi connection.  It is up to us to solve this.  There are no innocent bystanders.

Fill an hour with conversation with a friend.  You express an idea, an emotion, they lace theirs with yours, you weave that back and forth, trading, tapping, urging, fitting the pieces of you and them together to form something rich and meaningful.  You both walk away changed, fulfilled in some ways, for the listening and for the sharing.  Damn, where did the time go?

Old fashioned and time consuming and so inefficient.  What convenience will replace this?

I don’t want to trap my own food and haul water from the well.  But I don’t want to lose the magic we are still able to capture in every moment in which we invest ourselves.  Thoreau said he wanted to live deliberately, to live deeply, to suck the marrow out of life.  We don’t have to retreat to Walden to find this richness; it waits in almost every experience we will have.  But we can’t be bystanders.  Risk ourselves in each moment and a full, rich life waits in the exchange.

Hope this finds you with your hands in dirt,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith