When was the last time you really felt in control? How long has it been since things just work? Is that sobbing I hear in the background?

It seems to me that things everywhere are getting more gizmoy and less useful. Phones used to plug in somewhere, and when you weren’t home, you didn’t have to worry about answering them. Then answering machines came along–this was a good thing because then you had a machine that allowed you to not answer the phone when you were home as well. Ah, good times, good times!

Now, we have the wireless umbilical cord call cell phones. It seems to me my old half-pound Motorola did a much better job at actually being a phone than anything on the market now. Not only are we available all the time, now we are annoyed by cell phones whose rings are too faint or vibrations too distant. On the plus side, we can have our phones play the theme to Gilligan’s Island and that makes up for the fact that we can’t hear it in our pockets. Meanwhile, we still justify having them because at least they take pictures, play songs and games and allow us to watch tv on a screen we would rather step on than watch at home. Ah the age of digital. I used to think digital was cool, now it is just another word, for compressed ick that we think is cool because we can watch it while we stand in line somewhere.

This rant could go on forever, but let me just tell you how I scored one for the not so little guy (me). I took back my life. I discombobulated the glitz. I got myself some clean lines and simple function. I went into the MSN messenger options and I turned off everything I could. No sounds, no emoticons, no nudges, no pictures displayed for myself or my contacts–just quiet simple virtual real estate. Now if someone wants to send me a message, I don’t have to look at a blinking, shaking, mess of images, complete with assorted body functions, just to say hi to someone. (Of course, I guess I could get a classier bunch of friends, but who would have me?) Text is back, feel the love. Next I am going to re-introduce capitalization and punctuation. Order, structure, I’m coming to get ya, buddy!

What is it in your life that used to be about substance, but has now migrated to superficial image and noise? What used to be simple, that you’ve now made complicated? I hope the answers to both of these questions isn’t “your faith”!