Luddite Fantasies

I got my first computer in 1990 or 91. I've been using computers since 1986 or so. Honestly, I can't imagine my life without the technology. I do everything from banking/bill paying to keeping up my family scrapbooks on the computer. I use it to keep in touch with my friends and I make new ones. I can't imagine writing, especially seriously trying to be a published writer, without a computer. I'm sure it can be done, but not by me.

Occasionally, like this past week, for instance, I have dreams of chucking the whole thing and becoming a Luddite.

I think I bragged a couple of months ago about my new software. I got the Adobe Creative Suite -- Photoshop, In Design, Illustrator... I was in love, as I often am with new software. New things to learn. All the better for those projects I've been dreaming up. Oh, and they've proven good for business too.

However, I've been experiencing technical difficulties on and off ever since I installed the darned package. A few weeks before Christmas I finally sat down and did some long overdue computer maintenance. As much as I hated to admit it, the glitches were still there. I had even narrowed the source of my problems to one specific Adobe product. Since the problems were annoying, but not necessarily crippling, I guess I just sort of hobbled along thinking they'd magically disappear (I know better, but this is one of the crutches of being a positive, optimistic person).

It was the day after Christmas that I decided enough was enough. Well, actually, dear hubby might have prodded that thought along. His new computer game was suffering greatly and... well, we just can't have that.

I would generally say I am more computer literate than the general population... however, it took me two full days to get that damned software uninstalled. Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time fantasizing about becoming a Luddite -- a person who does without technology, believing that it just makes life more complicated.

That's probably an overly simplistic definition, but I did spend a lot of time thinking about Plain Magazine, an Amish publication from Ohio. Hubby and I actually subscribed to it a number of years ago. Not that we ever lived without our computers and we've always, more or less, been gadget-geeks. The magazine was nice, however. I loved that the type was entirely hand set and the illustrations were generally hand-cut wood engravings. As well as thought provoking reading, the magazine was always a great tactile experience for me. You could really feel the impressions made in the paper and it had a better smell than those glossy, slick things.

The program is removed now. It was, as I theorized, the source of ALL the troubles we'd been having. I'm still loving the rest of my new software, though some of it still has to be reinstalled in order to work properly. I guess my Luddite fantasies were fleeting. My computer may complicate my life at times, but it also makes my world a bigger place... and that's worth it, I guess, for me.