Technology and the Living World

 Technology and the Living World

I was checking my phone this morning, wondering how cold it had gotten last night (below zero!) and what the forecast is for the next few days. When I went outside, I looked at the thermometer on my porch to see if it agreed with the weather report. And I bundled up when I went to the common house to get the mail and up to the trash shed to take up my garbage. Brrr! My body knew the truth of the temperature better than any machine, little or big. We are so accustomed to let our technology take care of these things, guiding us to think ahead, to bundle up, to know exactly what someone’s superior measurement equipment can tell us about things like temperature, wind, clouds, rain or snow. And it is very convenient to have these sources of information! If you let your mind explore this, there are so many things in our cultures that keep us on track: calendars, clocks, phones…..

As I was walking outside, looking at the ice on the sidewalks, the snow on the trees, and the lack of wildlife roaming around, it struck me that most of life doesn’t depend upon technological weather information. Yet for thousands of years, life has survived without these things. They feel it in their bodies. In autumn, the falling temperatures and the declining light nudge many plants to push their roots down deep and get prepared for a hibernation, losing their leaves, maybe even their whole above-ground bodies. And when spring comes, they feel it in the soil and they begin pushing out and up, growing again into the sunlight. If the plant is an annual, their hibernation is forever, but their representatives, the seeds, start a new generation of plants once it gets warm.

Then there are the animals and birds. They too feel the changes in the season in their bodies, and probably they have more wisdom about this than we imagine. So many things have become instinctual over time, so chipmunks already know that once things get winter-cold, their task is to dig a burrow to keep them safe and warmer until spring. Birds either migrate to a friendlier setting once winter comes, or in other ways bundle up for the cold times. Whales migrate to warmer waters when the food runs scarce where they are. Elephant matriarchs guide their tribes to water during droughts. Squirrels bury food for later, to keep them alive during the months when growth has stopped. Our ancestors did much the same. Some of them actually hibernated! So we as a species have been capable of enduring the change in seasons without technology. That’s good to know.

There’s no lesson here. I don’t dislike technology (though the way AI has invaded my laptop has made me mad!). Technology is totally part of our modern lives, and during wind, cold, snow and rain, it helps us to be comfortable, even to lead almost the same lives as when it is warm and dry. But I’ve suddenly realized that technology (first arriving as primitive machines, and then evolving to the amazing capabilities of today) does separate us from the rest of the living world. And that separation probably makes it harder for us to feel connected to other living things. We’ve gotten so separated in our minds from the rest of life on earth that lately we’re trying hard to open our minds to the interconnectedness of it all. Yet we have this huge thing (technology) that separates us. Imagine a groundhog sitting at her computer. Or a dolphin, or a hummingbird. We can appreciate our access to technology, realizing it is only our species that uses it, and let it help us to join our fellow creatures rather than separate us from them.