Hurricane lesson
(written when power was out for three days due to a hurricane): There is a profound lesson here. Everyone should break his or her routine occasionally to gain perspective (and maybe see a way to get out of a rut if needed). Live a day without running water, without power, in the woods. Allow yourself a cell phone/PDA for comfort and for emergencies especially. If you’re an electronic musician, consider what it was like to play acoustic instruments. If you are an artist try working with paint “old style.” If you’re a writer, try pen and paper. If you’re a medical doctor, learn the remedies of the forest–where a large number of the medicines known to man originated. One could give endless examples, but you get the point. Man is a spiritual being. One must be not only one with technology, but one with the world. It is not technology that distracts from the oneness, but its misuse and poor design. People coevolve with technology. The clock cannot be turned back; only a fool would want to return to another time. But there is a need to be creative, to not accept the status quo, to be unafraid to simplify when needed to obtain a much needed integration of technology with our lives. This does not mean that you should dig a latrine before going to the bathroom, altough while camping it might be a good place to start.