The Ravings of the Semisane

This is the beginning of what I hope will become a collection of posts called “Life Philosophies Through Technology.” I’ve got the notion that some of our personal philosophies are heavily reflected in our use (or lack thereof) of technology. We’ll see what comes of this…

This first entry in the collection is about the allowances we allow in our lives…the little (or maybe not so little) concessions we make because the intrinsic value of those concessions’ effects on our lives are strong enough to motivate the latitude we grant things that might otherwise annoy us to no end. I think that most people do this in some form or another…we value something strongly enough that we “put up with” any of its idiosyncrasies that might cause us confusion, inconvenience, pain, etc.

For example, I was once the proud (and soon not-so-proud) owner of an HTC Mogul smartphone. I say soon not-so-proud because soon after I got the device and tested it, I became annoyed with its limitations. Quitting applications completely was a chore, and leaving anything running that relied on Internet access drained the phone’s battery so quickly that I ended up disabling email, messengers, and anything else that might periodically poll the Internet for data. I was annoyed that I had to remember to plug the phone in to charge every night, or risk the battery dying before I got home the next day.

With all of my annoyance at the phone’s limitations and annoyances, when I read the reports of how quickly the Blackberry, iPhone, and iPod Touch would drain their battery, I was more than hesitant to put out the money to change phones. I just stuck with a phone that I hated, because I didn’t think there was any point in going from one device that I would have to plug in everyday to another one that I’d have to do the same thing with.

The problem here, though, was why I hated having to charge my phone every single day. I was so annoyed by this not because of the act of plugging it in…but rather because I wasn’t really doing anything with the phone! Here I was, charging it every day, but I hardly used it as more than a phone, address book, and calendar. Ultimately, though, I had a valid reason to switch phones…I switched my computer from a PC to a Mac, and found synchronizing the phone with my computer painfully difficult and unreliable. I didn’t want to switch phone carriers in the middle of my contract, though, so I went with the Blackberry Curve.

Do I still have to charge my phone every day? Yes, of course. However, I’m doing so much more with the device than I did with my Mogul, so it doesn’t bother me at all. I use my Blackberry as a phone, address book, calendar, and much, much more. I have 4 email addresses associated with the Blackberry, so I’m getting 70-150 emails on the phone every day. I run Ubertwitter, so I’m keeping up with my Twitter timeline throughout the day, as well as sending tweets. I actually use the camera, and often send pictures from it to Twitter or to friends or family. I keep Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk running almost constantly. I chat with my wife and a couple of friends on Blackberry Messenger just about every day. Occasionally, I fire up Blackberry Maps to get directions to somewhere I need to go, but can’t find. I actually feel like I’m using a day’s worth of battery charge each day, so I don’t mind the inconvenience of having to make sure I plug it in at night.

The same goes for my iPod Touch. I use it as much more than just an MP3 player…I also use it as a calendar (since my calendar gets synced to both the Blackberry and MobileMe), I watch videos on it, I play games on it. I also use it as a quick and dirty Internet client when I don’t want to take the time to break out the MacBook…I can keep up with Twitter a bit easier than under Ubertwitter, I can visit web pages that just don’t work from the Blackberry, and I can do things on Facebook that the Blackberry doesn’t even approach.

Since I’m getting so much value out of the Blackberry and iPod touch, I actually have some motivation to give the devices some latitude, and not be constantly annoyed with the fact that I drain their batteries so quickly. And I think this sort of concession, or allowance, occurs in our day-to-day lives in just about every aspect…not just technology.

As a last example, think about your children (if you have children…otherwise, try to associate this example with something else.) I doubt anybody would question the fact that children can be extremely frustrating, annoying, and even embarrassing when they’re disobedient. I mean, think about when a child throws a tantrum in the store because you won’t buy them exactly what they want. It’s extremely disturbing, but do we just ditch our children and be done with the whole concept of parenting? No, of course not…but why don’t we?

We don’t ditch our kids because we love them. That love, the feeling that we get back from our children, the joys we take in watching them grow and live their lives…that’s our motivation to give them a bit of latitude when they don’t meet our expectations. Rather than abandoning them, we try to mold them and guide them into behaving better, into becoming good people. The good outweighs the bad, I guess…we get to laugh at the funny things they do, cry with joy at the love they show us, and marvel at how quickly they learn and mature. All of that, for most of us, is motivation enough to muddle through the bad, because we know how much we enjoy the good.