I finally hit that moment when I realized my opinion on something is not changing with the times, and boy did it hit hard. It wasn’t the grey hair, or weight gain, or anything in particular that might make one feel old.
It was a Kindle.
I have deep-set reservations about everything in the world going digital. I have lost countless pictures to crashing computers, lost entire e-mail accounts due to hackers, and had a computer charge my electric bill twice. Technology has also increased the cost of education dramatically.
Once upon a time, I was a die-hard reader. I could read for hours and forgot the world around me. I could lose myself in a story so deeply as a teenager that it took being grounded just to pull me back to reality. Back then it didn’t matter what I read, I just wanted to read. Every cent I had went into Star Trek or Anne Rice or Stephen King. There was nothing more peaceful than flipping the edges of a yet-unread book and letting the puft of air whiz across my face. This was before Harry Potter. Before Anne Rice finished her witches series. Before I became a mother.
My bookshelves have filled over the years. An entire section of my house is nothing but books. History, arts, mythology, sexuality and linguistics. Shelves dedicated to specific writers and stacks of books I’ve yet to read. I have shelves dedicated to stories I’ve written, too. Over the years they have become as familiar as the family who once competed against them for my attention.
Ironically, my education has taken my love for books and turned it into a battle of time. No longer can I read more than a page of a wonderful book without thinking of all the things I should be doing instead. Rare is it that a book I enjoy finds its way into my backpack, as opposed to my old reader-self who would not leave the house without at least two books.
Now Readers which can every book I own in one tablet, all digitally displayed. There are no pages to crinkle, no musty smell, no flipping the pages and feeling the words create a wind against my face. Now there are buttons. Earmarks are now clickable. But, there is no replacing the feel, the scent and the weight of a printed book.
This year I bought my first eBook online. It was the textbook for my statistics class, which I have still yet to use since I can only download one chapter at a time and the teacher isn’t even using it anyway. But it was math. Not a story, a script, or something to enjoy.
I had no problem putting my hundreds of music CDs onto a click-wheel iPod, so why am I reluctant to rely on a digital machine to hold thousands of books? The very idea that one cup of coffee, one rainy day, one spilled drink could destroy an entire library is too frightening.
Kind of makes me wonder exactly what was going through the minds of farmers and their beloved animals as the horseless-carriage began to take over roads. Cars didn’t need to be fed or kept or cleaned up after, but nothing could replace those brown eyes or that personality.
So when I was asked if I would ever own a Kindle, I said no. Adamantly. And then I realized how long it’s been since I’d actually sat down with an old friend and flipped through the pages. Technology is supposed to give us more time, but instead takes more.
So thank you, technology, for making our days busier and more connected, but I will stick with the printed, typed, yellowed and earmarked written word. Maybe someday I’ll enjoy turning a page on a flat screen, but for now, I plan to remain an old-fashioned non-digital reader. When I can find the time, that is.
