Sunday, October 18, 2009

Correspondence #2 Laptop Umbilical

October 7, 2009

This made me think about attachment and impermanence.

The other day my laptop powercord stopped working. I hadn’t noticed right away. The warning came on my screen that the battery was running low. But my computer was plugged in. I looked at the little place on the magnetic plug where the light usually tells me “green: all is charged and ready” or “red: I need the juice – keep me near an outlet”. I didn’t see either. Nothing. Just a cold, empty eye where the color used to be. And my computer was hanging on by the dying embers of its energy-dependent life. I tried not to panic. I hadn’t yet determined that it was the powercord, so I had lightheaded visions that I was about to lose all of my carefully constructed digital pearls.

When I turned myself and my computer over to the hands of the experts I was relieved to discover it was only the cord. I have a new one now and I am definitely claiming it as a belonging. I am grateful to the old one, but I have no desire to keep it.

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