Frank Borelli
Editor In Chief
New American Truth
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What or who do you rely on? As I type this, the TODAY show is running various “human interest” stories that they are revisiting from within the past decade. Virtually every story boils down to this: someone somewhere showed courage, patience or endurance under extremely stressful, dangerous or otherwise trying circumstances and they’re being recognized for it. Now, please note: nowhere in that sentence did it say anything about heroic technology, courageous computers, wondrous GPS trackers, or any other such techno-wonders of the modern world. These stories are all about people and the strengths they display. There’s a lesson to be learned there.
What lesson? Quite simply that when all else fails, the human spirit can not only endure but emerge victorious. Now I know I’m probably preaching to the choir, but have you ever wondered about our dependence on technology and just how silly we get with it at times?
I have a friend who has a GPS unit that he never travels without. That’s cool. I know how handy they can be. That said, those GPS units depend on layers of technology that start at the electrical system in your vehicle and ends with satellites; that’s plural: SATELLITES. Nothing ever goes wrong with them, or even could, right? Somewhere in that line of technology is a PERSON who is loading maps into a software program so that this wondrous technology can tell you where to go.
First off, my wife tells me where to go enough that I certainly don’t want to hear it from a machine. Second, the software can’t see construction, natural disasters, broken down vehicles, etc. So what happens when any particular piece of that technology chain is broken? That’s right… it’s WORTHLESS. At that point you need to have a map, a compass and a decent idea of how to navigate. Now I’ll freely admit that land navigation wasn’t my strongest skill during my military career, but I can read a map; I can tell the difference between the four (or eight, or sixteen) points on a compass. I can recognize land marks. I may not get to my destination on the fastest most efficient route but I WILL get there. How do people do that who have always been so dependent on their technology that they can’t read a map?
About two decades ago I started scuba diving. I was taught how to figure out my nitrogen load using the dive tables. At that time the wheel was just being released and taught (If you’re not a diver it’s hard to explain). These days the tables are just barely touched on and people are taught to depend on dive computers. Sure… another piece of technology dependent on some programmed segment of software that is different for nearly every make and model of dive computer. In this case, a piece of technology you quite literally trust your life to. And if your computer dies while you’re in the midst of a dive? Dive’s over. So is your dive day for that matter unless you can resurrect the information or have redundant depth and dive time tools (which every diver should).
It never ceases to amaze me how people blindly trust technology. Don’t they realize that they are blindly trusting every person and program that has touched that tech? I am reminded of the line in the movie Armageddon voiced by Rock Hound: “You know we’re sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn’t it?”
I digress…
The easiest way may not always be the most reliable way. The more you depend on technology the more your existence plays out at the will and whim of others. Trust in yourself. Trust in the competent man or woman standing next to you. Trust in simple tools that don’t require software, programming, or an engineering degree to diagnose problems with. Learn how to do for yourself. Chances are that, one day… some day… you’ll likely be put in a position of having to do for yourself without all that whiz-bang technology our contemporary society seems incapable of functioning without.
Even Rambo knew that the best weapon is the mind. And I’ll leave you with another quote from one of my favorite authors, Dean Koontz: “Intrepid expeditions through exotic lands and across strange seas are the quests of crawling children compared to the adventures waiting in the eight inches between the left ear and the right.”
Hang tough. Stay safe.
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