One of the ways to keep a FreshMind is to awake to all of the
wonderful tools we have to use to experience our realities. We very often
use metaphors to explain how some things are like other things. Such
as the way electricity seems to flow like water, that our breathing moves
in a rhythm like the ocean’s tides or that clouds look like fluffy
balls of cotton. One of the tools that have come our way is the mind-expanding
apparatus called the computer.
In the course of human events our need for manipulating and storing information
exceeded our brain, ten fingers and ten toes. From the abacus to the calculator,
a painting to a photograph, from a sculpture to a motion picture, we have
invented appliances to help us look, feel, hear and think outside the confines
of our own body. The telescope has taken us to outer worlds our legs could
not. The microscope has taken us to an inner world our eyes could not.
Airplanes, trains, and telephones take us to other communities at our whim.
And as we create these appliances we sometimes can find that they are creating
us.
We do not respond in a void to these things. As we create them they in
turn are creating us. As we make the airplane we change as our communities
become more alike and our own consciousness expands beyond the old physical
limitations. As we understand the flow of water through pipes, locks, faucets,
valves and damns we create a body of knowledge that helps us see into new
situations with wisdoms learned from the past. And so we are faced with
a tremendous opportunity to add to our perspectives on the world by looking
at the whole path of knowledge we use in operating our computers.
