Four Maxims for Technology

I. Use your own technology, wisely

We pick up our devices a thousand times a day, doorknobs we don't bother to notice. Phones and feeds are little glowing rectangles that follow us to bed, but they are not our friends. They belong to proprietors who have plans for you and me. It is our responsibility to hold them to the light, interrogate them as we would a stranger who demanded hours of our day: Is this serving my deepest desires? Might it serve me better than it does? Could I employ it, honestly use it to the good of somebody else?

II. Know thyself

Technology is a lever, and only as good as the ground under the person pulling it. It works best in the hands of someone who at least roughly knows, who it is that's pulling.

The problem with most people is they don't know themselves very well. So when they say things like "I want to resist technology" or "I want my life back," it's empty words, because they don't really know what they want, or don't want, from the machines.

If you really want to resist technology, first figure out who it is that's doing the wanting. Go looking for yourself in all the old places: your spirit, your quest to become someone; your watching of your own mind in its silent hours; and not least, your honest talk with those who know you.

Get to know yourself first, then decide what it is that you want from the machines. They can wait.

III. Find the right balance

The old ways still have their uses. The new tools can be very helpful, but there is a time and a place for all things, even in this age of digital everything. It would be foolish to believe that the new tools have made the old ones obsolete, or that the darkroom is now a museum piece. The handwritten letter may be an affectation in our time, but it still has its place - some tasks want the sensor, and some want a letter that will take a week to arrive, to be kept in a drawer for thirty years. We must learn both the old crafts and the new, so that either will come readily to hand when called for, but more importantly we must learn to tell which one is really needed in a given situation.

However you move through all this, do not go about it invisibly. A path is worth little if kept private: talk about it, write it down, make pictures or films an institution around it - or even just a table where people come and sit, and talk. Those close to you are also moving through this same miasma of machines without a map: they deserve from you an account. Give them a destination, give them a clear image - where are they heading? What will they become? How can they get there intact?