Posts
I’ve always had a terrible sense of direction, and with the advent of smartphones and GPS, it’s gotten worse. In the past, to avoid getting lost, I had to pay close attention to the physical landmarks along the way.
That’s a long-winded way of saying I had to be mindful, aware of what I saw as it whizzed by my windshield: the picturesque decaying barn on the hill, the adorable little girl with the big backpack waiting for the school bus, a ray of light illuminating the church steeple in a spiritual glow…
Now, I only have to program in my destination and then zone out in a high-tech slumber, robotically following Siri’s directions: “Stay in the center lane, take a right at the next light, proceed to the route.” It’s like time travel: Getting in my car is now like entering Dr. Who’s phone booth — like magic, I find myself transported to my destination with no recollection of how I got there.
I feel like I’ve been shortchanged:
Eliminating my self-directed quest to plan my route deprives me of the satisfaction of plotting my own course through life, making me utterly dependent on technology that’s a foreign language to me. It makes me feel more like an autotom and, regrettably, less of a human being.
It’s not just when I’m driving.
While I don’t get an endorphin high shopping in a supermarket, I throb with a surge of well-being whenever I work in my garden, even if I’m just pulling up weeds. In the same way, I feel a certain sense of satisfaction when I cook a good meal rather than going out, a real sense of mastery when I successfully complete even a minor home repair, or the sense of accomplishment I feel admiring the walkway I just shoveled.
But, sadly, every way we turn, new labor-saving devices are encroaching on us, determined to immobilize us, turning us into couch potatoes as sedentary as our houseplants. Rather than taking a chance of breaking out in a sweat, we have recently fallen for a new breed of mechanical aids like high-tech vacuum cleaners that suck by themselves.
Rather than using the time saved by these labor-saving devices to practice new skills like cooking, gardening, or home repair, we choose, instead, to spend big money on spas and gyms, which, sadly, only makes us feel worse when we discover that we can’t magically grow perfect bodies like we see advertised on TV.
Worse news is on the horizon: Elon Musk is designing robotic personal assistants in the shape and size of real human beings, which are anticipated to make their debut in 2026. They will take care of everything – probably even sex – so that we never again have to get out of bed.1
It all leads to the question: What are human beings good for? What is our purpose? Is it just to shop until we drop or marathon-watch every new series on Netflix? The key question is, where is our agency? That’s according to L.M. Sacasas, in his substack post “Life Cannot Be Delegated.”2
He cites Lewis Momford’s definition of what makes a person’s life full and whole: it is one “in which we might find meaning, purpose, satisfaction, and an experience of personal integrity. This form of life cannot be delegated because, by its very nature, it requires our whole-person involvement.”3
What makes life memorable and indelible is what we choose to pursue whole-heartedly with total body and soul involvement, “not through technologically mediated distraction and escapism.4”
Full-person involvement has a spiritual component, as Rainer Maria Rilke gently reminds us: Not only is it the only way to self-actualize, but it’s also the path to finding God– using whatever name we might choose to label the pinnacle of life.
“Only in our doing can we grasp you.
Only with our hands can we illumine you.
The mind is but a visitor;
it thinks us out of our world.”5
xxx
Illustration credit: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-robots-are-entering-the-public-worldwith-mixed-results-4ff8d11a
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid
5 https://www.lauriedoctor.com/musings/2020/8/18/only-in-our-doing-can-we-grasp-you-rilke
