Womanthology: The quest for simple genius
Welcome to issue 10 of Womanthology. We’ve hit double digits and it’s all starting to kick off (in a good way…) Technology / general technological wizardry has been a theme of the past fortnight.
I’ve finally succumbed to social pressure to conform and I’ve bought an iPad. It hasn’t quite managed to render my laptop obsolete as I thought it might. For some Womanthology tasks a proper keyboard and screen help things along a lot.
What it has done though has meant that I don’t need to boot up the laptop so often. The ‘always on’ nature of the tablet, as with a smartphone means that now, in a sense I’m never fully switched off either.
Arianna, I’m sorry…
When it’s the middle of the night and you remember that really important thing you didn’t do, there it is next to you, ever ready and beckoning you to click the screen on and satisfy your curiosity. Go on. You know you want to. Arianna Huffington would not be impressed. Her ‘Third Metric’, no devices in the bedroom rule *winking smiley face*, chortle chortle, is much easier to talk about than to live by.
It’s like the day I went to Wimbledon two weeks ago. I spent the early part of the day anguishing over the rapidly diminishing battery remaining on my phone. I had to take photos of Sir Trevor McDonald and Elaine Paige, for goodness sake…
Just enjoy the moment
By lunchtime it occurred to me that I was so busy trying to capture the moment, I was no longer actually in the moment. I was like will.i.am when he was running along in his gold tracksuit with the Olympic flame, tweeting as he went. Note to self and to Mr i.am: Enjoying the moment is more enjoyable than photographing the moment or tweeting about it.
It’s complicated… Is it really?
The other new piece of technology in my life is a washer dryer that is reminiscent of the Starship Enterprise. It’s boldly taking my laundry where no man (or woman) was gone before. It’s got flashing lights and it plays a tune (sadly not a very good tune) at the end of a wash. I suppose the Enterprise wouldn’t punctuate the completion of its major voyages of discovery with a plinky plonky electronic ‘tah-dah’ though.
The thing that struck me was that despite a vast array of 3000 programmes (OK, or maybe a few less), I’m only ever going to use two or perhaps three at the most. How much time in life do we spend making simple things unnecessarily complicated?
It’s like the quote following quote. (Sorry, not sure who it’s written by.)
Why complicate life?
Miss somebody? Call.
Want to meet? Invite.
Want to be understood? Explain.
Have questions? Ask.
Don’t like it? Say it.
Like it? State it.
Want something? Ask for it.
Nobody will know what’s going in your mind. It’s better to express rather than to expect.
If you already have the ‘no’, take the risk of getting the ‘yes’.
We just have one life. Keep it simple. Be happy and keep others happy.
Keep it simple, stupid
The above was somewhat revolutionary to me. I’m quite into asking questions for clarification, so that’s OK, but directness and asking for what I want straight out? Saying what’s on my mind? I’m British, for goodness sake. This goes against all conventional British wisdom. This is going to take a bit of work.
Of course there is whole heap of reasons to hang on to complexity, but maybe, just for a short time I’m going to give this simplicity lark a go to see where it gets me.
