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“Men have become the tools of their tools.”
– Henry David Thoreau
Over a century and a half ago, American poet, writer, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau decided to leave the relative hustle and bustle of his hometown of Concord Massachusetts and retreated to a small cabin in the woods where he would pass the next two years in near solitude. The time that he spent in the woods is meticulously recounted in his seminal work, Walden Pond. Tired of the frivolities and wastefulness of the society around him, Thoreau decided to move to the woods (to a cabin that he built himself) as a great experiment to discover the essence of his life and to figure out the most meaningful way to pass his days while consuming the least amount of resources as possible. In his own famous words, “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately...(to) see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Thoreau's work is, in a very deep sense, a reflection on how we should use our most precious resource: our time. And in today's world we, who continue to drown in an endless and incessant stream of conflicting information, would do well to heed his call to a simpler, more genuine form of existence and truthfulness. Walden's deliberate and radical move to the fringes of the society that he found himself a part of was not only a rebellion against the growing consumerism that he saw taking hold, but also against the way that the people of his day were beginning to lose touch with reality and fritter their days away in meaningless pursuits and consumption of empty "news" and entertainment.
Just as those in Thoreau's society were not completely at fault for the cultural changes brought about by the industrial revolution, we today are not totally to be blamed for the mess that we find ourselves in. The powerful technologies that were unleashed upon the world in the form of the smartphone and social media platforms about a decade or so after the turn of the century are transforming the very fabric of our societies all across the globe. For all of their benefits – and the benefits are indeed numerous – these devices and apps are wreaking havoc with our ability to process information, decide what is true, and deliberately use our powers of attention and focus. This is not to mention the way that these technologies are also intruding upon, and eroding, our ability to truly connect, socialise, and empathise with one another.
This opinion on the devastating effects of our hyper-connectivity, and in particular the nefarious business model that the social media platforms are built on (one of deliberate addiction) is one that is being expressed by many leaders of the tech world, and as the saying goes, “if snake come out of bush and say 'he dey', he dey.” So if the people responsible for creating these technologies are the ones warning us against their usage, and themselves banning their children from access to them, then we would do well to listen to them. Like characters in an ancient Greek drama, the original social media inventors such as Mark Zuckerberg have unwittingly opened up a modern day Pandora's box of information overload and attention hijacking and now we live in a world where we are all glued to our screens from morning to night, where our attention has been shattered and divided in a million different directions, and where wild conspiracy theories are no longer the domain of a few strange individuals.
[caption id="attachment_885996" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Photo taken from sheknows.com -[/caption]
While the original intentions for smart phones and social media may have been benign or even positive, the whole thing has quickly devolved into a horrible mess, and now we are now beginning to truly experience the devastating effects of the fallout of the information revolution. Although I am not yet sure how to properly navigate this seeming inescapable hyper-connected online world, I do know that I am very, very weary of where we are heading. Most sickeningly, instead of trying to learn to manage our own usage of these devices, we are throwing ourselves, and our young people, head first into their unbridled usage under the guise of progress and the never ending debacle that is online school.
I can't, nor do I want to, retreat to a lonely cabin in the middle of nowhere to get some clarity on all of this madness, but I do know that I need to get a grip on the way that I use, or choose not to use, these technologies. We may not be responsible for how this whole mess started, but we are certainly responsible for how we choose to proceed with these new technologies.
Simple grilled cheese
What is more satisfying than a warm grilled cheese sandwich, filled with gooey melted cheddar and served with some hot soup. Grilled cheese sandwiches were one of my favourite things to eat as a child. Here is a recipe that harkens back to simpler times that I am sure you will enjoy!
Ingredients
2 slices of bread
2 slices cheddar cheese
2 tbs butter
1 tsp yellow mustard
2 slices tomato (optional)
1 tsp chow chow (or any other kind of pickled relish)
Salt
Black pepper
Directions
1. Heat a small non-stick skillet on medium high heat.
2. Spread the butter on one side of each of the slices of bread.
3. Place one slice of bread, buttered side down, into the pan. Immediately top with the mustard, chow-chow, tomato, cheese slices and a small sprinkle of salt and black pepper.
4. Cover with the other slice of bread (buttered side facing out) and continue to allow the sandwich to brown.
5. When the first side is brown, flip the sandwich over and gently press down the top with the back of a spatula. Remove from pan when both sides are brown and serve immediately.
 
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