my non-electric thoughts

long ago...if you wanted light---
here are the steps:

1. get a match, get kerosene lamp, lift the globe off.
2. strike the match, light the wick, put the globe back on.
3. adjust the flame for the best light. (there’s a little knob on the side of the lamp that you could use to raise or lower the wick to adjust the amount of light)

after days of use, the wick would get crusted and would not light (burn) enough, so---

a. do procedure #1 
b. roll the wick up higher .
c. get scissors and trim the crusted part off
d. do procedure #2 (#3 if needed)

there you have your light again…

yeah sure, that easy right? but now it’s so –oh– different…people talk about how inconvenient it is when electricity is out for even a few hours. almost everyone complain, others worry… others chose to fall asleep and hope for the ‘lights’ to be back upon waking up. for that period of time that the light switch does not produce instant light -you simply can’t do anything productive… the pc won’t turn on to tell you if you have messages from your online buddies and your mind have suddenly ‘blacked-out’ too that you can’t think-write… for some, it’s the inconvenience of not having water for home-use ‘coz it runs with an electric pump.

hay…our lives in the recent past and present have become so dependent on electricity it became really hard to imagine the world without it. our lifestyles have changed dramatically. years ago, in pansol balara (luzon, philippines), I draw water from the well by hand. now, it would seem to be an impractical task. those were the days that I did laundry by hand (teka, i still prefer to do that even with the advent of those ever-turning wash machs)…days that I polished floor with a scrub made of coconut husks, hence I didn’t need those electric house -cleaners and electric exercise-machines altogether.

what did we do then for entertainment? there were a few movie theaters (expensive too), very few televisions (most in black & white), no CD players, and computers can only be seen in big offices. now it seems to me that the reason why we learned to sing, dance, act or play musical instruments is because there were not any of those electric gadgets at home…and we were happy too (happier even). possibly the invention of electricity has caused the newer generations to be less creative (in using their natural gifts).

the question is: are we willing to go back to those days ? am I? this question needs a lot of thinking, and surely with the ‘electrifying noise’ and busy-ness around me, I won’t be able to do that ‘thinking’-thing. so let’s leave it at that for the mean time.