Clouds descending

I accidentally euthanaised my computer.

It’s a long and possibly amusing story which, along with a horrendous story about running out of loo roll in a church office, makes me glad that I will never warrant a biography.

To be clear I am not writing this as a precursor to fundraising.

But what has struck me is the nagging emptiness and the occasional experience of a phantom limb as I gaze at the space where my laptop once sat.

It’s not grief, so much as withdrawal. I have lost the ability to function on full power without my anodised box of delights. I have lost omniscience and omnipotence. Or at least, speedy access to these, because I am now limited to typing with my thumbs.

Once at university we were posed an essay question equating IT with the Tower of Babel. And to a degree this barrier to global communication might well be divine judgement upon self reliance and delusions of digital grandeur.

But in reality, the whole experience has become a welcome, if externally imposed, fast. It has opened my eyes to the utter idolatry and ritualised worship of our icon clad devices. The bell rings or the tone chimes and we prostrate ourselves before them for another scrap of enticement or encouragement from the cloud of all knowing.