No doubt we've all had occasional encounters with a tangle of cords, of some shape or form, in our lives. They present a singular kind of frustration. An application of seeming chaos to what seems like should be a straight forward solution. A cord, indeed, is a line. As such, the frustration of the tangled cord absolutely begs for the freedom of a cordless solution. And so a cordless world has increasingly been implemented. But what is lost in such cordlessness. The tangles are gone, or so it seems, but the lines have become invisible, intangible things. We believe the cordless signal, can see that it works, but there a new mysteries. We're untethered in all the positive and negative connotations that can have. At what cost comes this kind of freedom? A shoelace - a cord of its own - may come untied, but we, in the moment, can recreate the knot. But can we tie anew a wave moving through space and time? Uncertain.
It's morning, early for some, later for others. I'm drinking coffee; french pressed; black. How is your day starting off?
Unfortunately my nephews have laceless shoes. So they'll probably never learn how to (re)create the knot. They have never seen a phone attached to a cable (except for charging). They don't understand the concept of copying and storing music on different media as they think it's just "there" on every device.
But maybe we're just boring old farts?
this is a great post, as I read it and saw it yes the physical cords may be gone, thus no physical entanglements but the only entanglements I see now with all the "cordless" craze is that it has allowed many nefarious things to happen. In the guise of "bluetooth" we have telemetry that can geolocate where you stand by only a few feet, all the "cordless" nonsense has caused so much data to fall in the hands of all these alphabet "agencies" that I truly long for the days of the simple web where everything was connected by literal cords and there were no alphabet agencies and their datamining bullshit.
I recall reading once (and I'll likely not do it the full service here) that any advancing technology inevitably comes with a "give and take." It is important to realize that progress has costs and further that costs, in occasions, may render the progress useless, or create an actual obstacle.
I like to think of automatic doors at stores. Sure it allows for hand free access, and it is definitely a boon for physically impaired. But if the mechanism running the door, or the sensor need to activate it, fails, then the door becomes useless (fortunately there are manual overrides, but the point remains). Simple manual doors are incredibly old technology, but they remain reliably functional. In many cases I can see the same with cords.
And hey, it makes for a broader nice metaphor as well.
yes it does make for a great metaphor, it is how I read it and why I responded thus.
The way the world is, what I mean is, pollution of our air, water, food, etc. we have become a planet where the next step would be to have automatons, we used to be a species tied to the earth and our cultures now we have become a hot mess of "cordless" drones.
Some fixes require back tracking it seems. Some years back I began to become very interested in permaculture systems and design and I try to implement some of it in my own space (which currently seems to mean grass a bit longer than my neighbors might prefer and various gourds and squashes cover as much ground as possible). The general positive impacts is essentially less yard work, but more specifically, less water, less gas, no fertilizers, or pesticides, and definitely a lot of new interesting bugs. I very okay with that, bugs are awesome
Low tech, simple tech, pragmatic tech. Seeing solutions that already exist without needing to complicate things more.
That is awesome. We (I mean as the human species) need to return to basic nature, now I am not advocating to undo all the technological advances we have made but all I am saying is to be aware that nature has always been here first and wll still be here in a billion years in the future when we and all our technologies have been long gone. We only get one shot at this planet, we don't get another and we have made a mess of it already. I love technology and have loved it since 1982, when I was a little girl of 13 years old and I sat before my first Commodore64 so I am that invested but when does technology become a detriment to humanity and society the question begs to be asked.
Taking account of solutions such as the example of permaculture systems you spoke about is a step in the right direction and that type of real solution is what is needed for what ails this world we live in.