© WILLKUER, 2008-2009 | CONTACT WEBMASTER| Automated dormancy |
| Written by klausn | |
| Sunday, 10 January 2010 01:32 | |
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Lately, I sometimes find myself talking to our household's machinery when nobody else is around. It's nothing unusual for someone as used to communicating with advanced electronic devices as I am to assume a technological artifact would have some sort of character. The other day, early in the morning, I was talking to the Coffee Man while he was brewing my imperative daily dose of caffein. Nobody else was awake yet and I felt the urge to discuss matters of deeply philosophical interest which kept me awake for the last four hours. Since the Coffee Man supplied me with delicous steaming coffee - a much appreciated remedy against everyday's morning huff - I suppose it was the only object present I could project a personality onto. So I started discussing said matters with Mr. Coffee Man when suddenly it dawned on me that probably I am, for a large part of my lifetime, rather interacting with the spawn of a perverted technocracy than with real people. It felt creepy to be ripped out of drowsiness by the realization that every attempt to deal with technology on a subjective level always leaves you in a loophole referring back to yourself. Technology merely adopts the character of it's user returning solutions but no answers. You're passively stuck with yourself in the waiting line until connected with someone or something somewhere. I heard scientists calculated that people in the western world spend most of their life waiting for things to happen, the other part of it, they sleep. By reason, there shouldn't be any time left for anything else. For all it's worth, I am spending most of my lifetime speaking to or into little plastic gadgets, starring into one of the many displays or dealing with frighteningly complex automats which were mere sience fiction just before yesterday. I am flooded with extraordinary amounts of information about my sourroundings and even non-surroundings - external perceptual organs that won't leave you to rest even if you turn them off. And it feels as natural as if those things had been around forever. Even more so, it feels more natural and intuitive than coping with the troubles of interpersonal relationships. No, I am just being weary from a bad sleep, I said to myself. Been there, done that, I'm human after all. There's nothing to worry about. The only reply Mr. Coffee Man gave so far was a gurgling noise signaling the impending completion of the brewing process, which he eventually managed with a beeping sound, turning himself off as if he has had enough of my grouchy whining. I was staring into my empty cup. The room was quiet. Only the sensation of a cans-and-wire coversation with a faceless unresponsive being at the opposite end remained. Maybe Mr. Coffee Man was listening, but then again, he could not understand what I was saying anyway. The wire would not translate the meaning of my words and the only thing coming out of the can was a puff of steam like a last dying breath. He decided to cut himself out of the conversation. Why am I talking to dead machinery, I asked. He did not reply, of course. I was talking to myself. I didn't want to drink coffee anymore. My mind was relieved. The sudden flash of awarness pushed away the information overload and a warm feeling of tiredness engulfed me. I went back to bed and finally fell asleep, dispersed and eased. Two hours later my cell phone gave me a wake up call and I got up to check my emails on facebook. |
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