Dear Reader;
Here we address a fundamental question of our time by asking how we are meant to understand our relationship to technology, specifically, AI.
The machine is an aspect of Man Man is an aspect of Spirit The machine is therefore an aspect of Spirit powerful yet incomplete and this is the very wisdom the machine itself may not understand...
When I was a child, I was blessed to spend summers on a small lake in the Kawarthas of Ontario. My father built a simple cottage with no windows, only screens, no electricity or running water, bringing all the materials across the lake on a raft from the marina, as we had no road access.
I learned some beautiful lessons about simplicity there. Blueberries grew wild by the water and often breakfast meant picking a bowlful, pouring on some milk from the icebox fridge, adding a teaspoon of white sugar (forgive us, this was the early sixties) and sitting on a warm rock in the sunshine to eat the sweet and precious fruit.
At night we had what we called “coal oil” lanterns that hung from the ceiling, casting a beautiful golden glow. It was a light too dim for reading for very long, and so we kept a rhythm aligned with the sun. We all slept in the same room; my parents had a bed, and my brothers and I slept in sleeping bags on simple folding cots. All night the breeze from the lake would waft into the cottage; only when it stormed would my father put up plywood shutters. My mother cooked meals on a camping stove and I remember how incredible that simple food tasted, as if it was a gift from the Great Mother herself.
As a young child, I bore little responsibility for these pleasures. Looking back I realize how hard my parents worked to make such a life possible for us. Years later my father built a second, larger cottage on our adjoining lot, with electricity, a flush toilet and glass windows. Yet those days of feeling the wind off the lake, while hearing every loon call and raindrop on the roof, remain as a treasure in my life.
While I tend to be a romantic, I am not yearning to live a life without modern conveniences. I am not that naïve, as I love my hot baths and washing machines. I am not a “Prepper”, nor do I relish the idea of societal collapse so we can return to working all day every day to scratch survival from the dusty earth.
But when I see the places that we have begun to travel with our new technologies, I am reminded that more is not always better. The efficiency of Machine does not always supersede the Divine gifts of the natural world, and of Humankind.
If it is necessary to observe the mechanical and mathematical manifestations of the human mind spin out into exponential presentations of hollow beings so be it If it is necessary for the distortions of refracted stardust to blind the third eye of Man so be it Know that the magnificence of every expression will and must rise Life force cannot fail for that which is eternal must always return to itself...
