Like many people in 2010, my days are processed in trillions of nanosecond operations as I deftly swipe the touch pad calling up and dismissing different windows onto my existence.
The sleek, brushed aluminum casing contains the complete workings of a life concentrated in a way never before possible. My entire scientific career—data, papers, grants, experiments, library, correspondence—sits tidily in a folder entitled ‘work.’ The coffee stained notebooks of an aspiring writer are replaced by a bookmark, ‘blogs.’ I have no checkbook, no filing cabinet for bills or cluttered desk with business affairs piled in stacks, just an excel file and a link to online banking. My current sense of political outrage and activism is another folder, bookmark and blog. Even much of my social world arises as electrons at light speed navigate labyrinthian, microscopic channels of silicon, their path tracing joy and disappointment with equal precision. Music, photography… no more ablums, CDs or tapes, no more boxes overflowing with old photos waiting to be neatly arranged in an album. All this now resides unobtrusively as a little e-mess on my laptop.
It’s remarkable to have all the wheels and pulleys of my cares, struggles, and ambitions displayed on a 15-inch glass screen. What’s more remarkable is the delicate, precise but firm thwack of closing the lid. Sending into hibernation the spider-web of day to day life, I get that same feeling I get when I travel and land in a new city. Free from cares, free to explore, the world is an adventure lurking around the corner. Anything can happen. Today’s powerful, highly connected laptops are amazing tools, but their capacity for hibernation, it turns out, is a precious gift.
