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Mary and I, again, do not own a computer, but that has not prevented us from making selective use of some of its capabilities. We advertise our guest rooms on a bed-and-breakfast website, for example. This ad generates the majority of our business, and does so at less cost than any other form of paid promotion. (When prospective guests want to book a room, they contact us by phone, not by e-mail.) The device that in other applications is an agent of faceless information-gathering, disembodied message delivery, and physical torpor has become a magnet for live interaction with those seeking accommodations in a palpably crafted environment that they can peruse on foot.

Occasionally I do use the computer myself. When time came to upgrade my rickshaw, I took a two-block walk to the library, opened an e-mail account, and placed an ad on the Internet. The buyer was a pedicab driver from New York City, and he traveled over a thousand miles to pick up the vehicle in person. I doubt I could have located this prospect by any other means.

But I resist having a computer in the home. I am presently typing on a device that many would consider stone-age: a word processor. I decided to buy it instead of a computer for all the reasons above. It was much cheaper, it uses much less energy, it doesn’t absorb more of my attention than I wish, and it embroils me in fewer other thorny technological dilemmas. And it still does just what I need it to. It is admittedly slower than a computer, especially when printing. But I actually like that limitation. Computers were supposed to reduce the need for paper, but when everyone can print out hundreds of pages in a flash, whole forests topple with corresponding rapidity. Because my printer is slow, I use it only when I am really ready to print, saving reams of paper. And since I have other business to do at home, I can get up and cut bars of soap, or clean a guest room, or play the piano, or talk to my wife, or give my third child, Evan, a reading lesson while the processor prints. It is actually a nice excuse for me to get up and take a break.

There really is no end to the possible uses of technology, nor are there limits to finding a way around it; but in all cases it must serve our needs, not the reverse, and we must determine these needs before considering the needs for technology. The willingness and the wisdom to do so may be the hardest ingredients to come by in this frenetic age. Perhaps what is needed most of all, then, are conditions favorable to them: quiet around us, quiet inside us, quiet born of sustained meditation and introspection. We must set aside time for it, in our churches, in our studies, in our hearts. Only when we have met this last requisite, I suspect, will technology yield its power and become a helpful handservant. Mary and I still turn on the kerosene lamp and read by the fire on a cold winter’s eve. By switching off the electric light, I think we see a bit better.

Acknowledgments

I cannot begin to thank the many people who, at various times and at various stages of the manuscript leading up to this book, generously chipped in their comments and suggestions regarding anything from the phrasing of a single line to the thrust of the entire narrative: Paul Chu, Bette Denich, Wade Roush, Dave Clemenson, Mike Stubbs, Mark Edmundson, George O’Har, Dennis Quinn, Daniel Nichols, Steve Faulkner, Beth Huber, Will Hoyt, Chuck Presberg, Sherry Hausman, Mary the librarian, Pat Wendleton, Becky Penrod, Sandra and Ralph Meredith, Michelle of Writer’s Inc., Michael Romick, Nat and Jane Griffin, Dickson Beale, Jordan House, James Howard Kunstler, Alan Whitney, Chris Paciorek, Mom, Larry, Jackie, and Dad (whose insight contributed greatly to the title, and thanks for their title suggestions as well to my other family members, Alicia, Cary, Mark, Jenny, Kareen, Jeff, Terri, Bob, and Tommy); also Eda Kranakis, Pauline Maier, and Merritt Roe Smith, Uday Mehta, and Betty Cole (who, though never reading any of this, provided indispensable