WARNING - THIS POST CONTAINS QUITE A LOT OF SWEARING. PLEASE DO NOT PROCEED ANY FURTHER IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED!!!
Luddite - one of a band of protesters against unemployment who destroyed machinery in English factories about 1812-18; hence, any opponent of technological innovation, etc.
If there’s one thing guaranteed to drive me round the fucking bend, induce an almost total meltdown, and disturb my yogic bliss, it’s having to deal with technology - especially computer technology.
Which sadistic arsehole came up with the idea for computers? I would really, REALLY like to meet that person, and shake them by the scruff of their neck. Did they have no idea of the stress that they were unleashing on the world?
I bought a new laptop a couple of weeks ago to replace my old one, which has taken to overheating and spontaneously shutting down (a bit like a menopausal autistic female): and I decided to take the plunge (hoping like fuck I didn't drown), and invest in a supposedly much more user-friendly Apple MacBook Air. All I can say at this point is, I don’t know who this user is to whom it’s supposed to be so fucking friendly, but it certainly isn’t me.
I know there are many autistic people out there, women among them, who are positive geniuses with computers (probably one or more of them are responsible for developing the bloody thing in the first place) - but I’m not one of them. I don’t see patterns, especially not in computers - I just see a random, confusing, fucking mess. I am almost totally computer illiterate - you might as well write the bloody instructions in Swahili for all the sense they make to me.
Today, I finally got around to trying out my new external DVD drive, which I had to buy ‘cos the Airbook doesn’t have one (pay more money, get less hardware). It’s only been sitting in its box for the last two weeks, while I’ve continued to watch DVDs on my old laptop with its integrated optical drive - did I ever mention I don’t like change very much? And right from the start I managed to get into a pickle, simply by running the instruction DVD which came with the thing (but which, according to my best friend, is only necessary for Windows users. No wonder I couldn’t follow the instructions - there weren’t any to be found for me to follow!)
In the end I had to rope in said best friend, yet again. Fortunately, she also has an Airbook, and the same DVD drive: and she absolutely loves technology, and sorting out problems. I think she’s quite loopy, personally, but there you go. It takes all sorts.
So, for over an hour and a half, we fiddled and faffed about, trying various options, including downloading a different video player - but nothing worked. Whilst I despaired, and my mind and nerves unravelled, she delighted in trying to unravel the conundrum.
Finally, having exhausted all known options for why the fucking thing wouldn’t do as it was supposed to, and simply plug in and play, she suggested that I unplug it and then replug it into the USB port on the opposite side of the computer. I thought she must be really desperate, or taking the piss, and visions of having to buy another computer with an integrated optical drive, just in order to be able to watch my DVDs, started to filter into my now overly fraught mind. But I did what she asked and, lo and fucking behold, it worked! I then tried it again in the port from which I’d just removed it, making sure to connect it firmly like she had said it needed, and it worked.
Un-fucking-believable!! All that time and, for me, hair-pulling stress, and it came down to not having plugged the bloody thing in properly. Talk about Not Keeping It Simple! (Keep It Simple is a slogan we have in AA, but often don’t use - case in point).
Technology often makes me want to chew my own foot off and use it to club to death whoever was responsible for creating it in the first place. Do they seriously not realise how much stress they released into the universe with the advent of this stuff? Mental, emotional, and physical? My computer takes over my whole bloody world - it becomes my higher power, a God at whose altar I sacrifice my peace of mind, physical well-being, and sanity. It makes me loopy. As if I needed any extra assistance.
Well, after today, I’ve decided that I’m not doing it any more. I’m not giving it that power - it can sod off. I think this is God’s joke on me, an additional source of humour about which I can write, and laugh at myself for my Luddite predilections. Seriously, I think I have a prehistoric brain. Or, at least, some areas of it remain stubbornly underdeveloped and resistant to the evolutionary changes which the human race has undergone. Why else would I have such difficulties in dealing with the multitudinous stresses of modern life? My nervous system just hasn’t adapted to it.
Of course, the flip-side is that if it weren’t for the computer then I wouldn’t be able to be sharing this with you now. Nor would I be able to do my shopping on-line, thus minimising one of the other sources of stress in my life. Like many things, it’s a double-edged sword. I just have to be careful not to stab myself or slice off my own limbs whilst manically, and carelessly, waving the thing about.
