 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
||||||||||
The fact that you are reading this points to a miracle, the existence of God and serendipity. I’ve spent the better part of a week trying to debug my computer of viruses and worms, Trojans and spam. These unwanted guests arrived with such stealth and ease that my workstation was soon reduced to an email nightmare as some 9000 unwanted messages crippled the system. And then it collapsed like some overloaded beast of burden. In my frustration, I felt like shooting the poor animal. But, No, it must be fixable! I said to myself. I haven’t paid good money to Mr Norton for nought.
So there it was: five days of downloading, updating, deworming, anti-spamming and virus hunting. Five days of raised eyebrows, tilted heads, grimaces and clenched teeth. I’m sure the lines on my ageing face have become permanent troughs of resentment. My graying scalp itched like it never has as my lips were rolled and bitten with disgust. I looked in the mirror this morning and my sleepless eyes now have a squint that I can only account for as computeris virusitis.
The computer slowed, then sped up, then closed down. Files were lost, found and some recovered. The Internet was onlined, sidelined and realigned. Sometimes, I was sure Mr MyDoom and his other alien “exe” files and vile corrupters were sniggering at me from behind the screen.
I was up till all hours looking at it, wondering why this cursed machine that has invited my undivided attention and which has so seductively encouraged my dependence on it (for my living) should have failed me. What did I do wrong? Was the sin in me or in something I wrote or said that it didn’t like? It has every file (that is, collection of thoughts) that I value somewhere in its belly. I had saved, saved, saved in vain. And yet, at a moment of its own choosing, it ambushed my faith and left me blubbering in desperation.
But here it still is—mechanically restored to a state that is more functional than fantastic, but at least I can communicate with its makers and repairers. The advice they gave me, the patches they sent me from Cyberheaven reminded me of a bicycle tyre I repaired in my boyhood—eventually the patches themselves were the only rubber hitting the road!
My computer is now slower and more fragile, but hey, aren’t we all? Indeed, the past few days have reminded me of an athlete with a nagging injury, a car with a misfiring plug, an orchestra with a rogue mistuned string section: they all work, but not as they ought. We have a glimpse of what is possible, but as though affected by some concupiscent residue, they don’t work as they should; “original sin” resides in their assembly. While oriented and organised to an output in one direction, a virus whose effort is in the opposing direction betrays them.
At times such as these I repent of my desire to be connected to my virtual community. I loathe my engagement with globalisation and its all-encompassing network. I think sentimentally of my $300 portable Olivetti typewriter, with its simple striking arm, ink ribbon and hand-fed paper. I dream of my electric IBM typewriter in those days of white-out and correction ribbons when documents were immediate and you knew exactly what was being trashed because it was in your hands.
In his 1974 classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig claimed that, for him, God resides “as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer” as He does “at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.” I’ve never tried saving a document onto a mountain or writing text into the petals of a flower, but if they crash like computers, I’ll know Pirsig was right.
Until then, I’m grateful God thankfully resides somewhere else than in a man-made facility that shows all the flaws of its designer.
Extract from Signs of the Times, December 2004.
Home - Archive - Topics - Podcast - Subscribe - Special Offers - About Signs - Contact Us - Links
Copyright © 2006 Seventh-day Adventist Church (SPD) Limited ACN 093 117 689
Unassociated
advertisement:
This article comes from a
regular column in
Signs
of the Times.
