For the longest time, I've been trying to write a poem about technology. I tried to write it about computers... an ode to my iPod... maybe about my laptop, a silicon chip, circuitry, anything. But I just couldn't. I was in a rut with my writing, couldn't get anything onto paper.
And then I watched a documentary on bioluminescent deep sea fish. I was inspired. I wrote two poems, began on a short story. All from watching something about jellyfish that glow.
Why? Because nature in inspiration. You just don't see that many poems about computer chips or the internet. I think at the heart, we still draw our inspiration from more natural things. Love, flowers, the human condition. The internet is just too.... heartless for us. Computers and websites and cellphones, theyre all just a method for communicating and spreading that which is primitive. We want basic human connection. We want to talk about our emotions. We want to see other's stories, fall in love, and share it with the world.
To me, a fish that somehow lights up is more fascinating than an LED flashlight could ever be. I want to be at the zoo, learning about rear-fanged snakes or chinchillas with a hundred hairs per follicle. That's what drives me. It seems like however great technology is and will be, it can't overpower nature. There will always be something about the natural world that intrigues us more than wires and electricity. We can marvel a TV set, but its hard to understand how in the hell it works. With animals, plants, they're like us. They have hearts, they breathe air, they move and maybe even feel. We connect with them.
Will technology ever connect with us that way? Will computers ever fascinate us the way a jellyfish does? Can a silicon chip or an iPhone ever bring to us the beauty of a landscape?
I prefer my sunrise to a TV set, thank you.
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