In trying to make our lives simpler, computers have made
them hopelessly more complex. What used to be simple, straightforward,
intuitive processes now require us to solve a rubrics cube a day to figure out
how to store, edit, find, save, and retrieve files. Where is that thing I was
working on this morning? I now have ten paths to it, half of which take me
nowhere near it, three of which take me to some alternative universe version of
it, two of which disappear when I try to click on them. I never know if I do
get a file open if this is the one I wanted, the latest version, the best
version. It's one of the versions the computer saved for me without my
permission when I was thinking about options. The lost bits exist still in the
ether. Now I have to train myself in the proper recovery method. I've lost my
actual train of thought because I have to inhabit the amateur computer
scientist section of my brain for twenty minutes and even to the thing that I
dread most in the world: search the HELP menu in a desperate and fruitless
attempt to get help. I put in search terms, carefully using the actual terms
the computer used with me to tell me what my problem was. But the words a
computer uses to talk to you are never the words the computer will allow you to
use to talk to it. “You need to verify your username and password.” Ok. Since there’s
no useful information there, I go to help, “How do I verify my username and
password.” One of two things will happen: “Your query yielded no results.” Or “here
are the 10,239 things you might be asking about, including a recipe for blueberry
anchovy muffins.”
If I ever to get to the old version of the document without the
20 hours of work I’d already added to it but which, starting from, I’ll save at
least 20 hours re-editing that would have been wasted looking for the version I
actually wanted to work on I may start working on it again. But before I can do
that, I have to offer myself up to a Buddhist monastery.
