That which must be unsung

Why is it that it isn't romantic to write about the internet? We can rhapsodize about letters and books, extolling the qualities of the paper, parchment, binding, the stamp, the handwriting, etc. But to write about pixels, buttons, screens, or wireless, satellite, or dsl connections seems inhuman. I've even heard about typewriters being sentimentalized, electric and manual. But not computers. I suppose one could say that it's because the hand actually touches the paper that goes into an electric typewriter, and the copy is printed more deliberately and personally by a manual push of the button. The envelopes have to be individually stuffed even if address labels are used. These are things that we connect with on a very human level. But the internet and cell phone transmissions aren't physically tangible in the same way. They belong to the immaterial. To electrons and positive and negative charges. They are more like fluorescent lights. An incandescent light, though less personal and organic than a candle or kerosene lamp, still has a warming flame. Fluorescent lights are phosphorescent gas. I think.

But I wont vilify electronic pixels, radio transmissions, and fluorescent lights. They still illumine content. We can still connect with the content. It's just a more gnostic connection, and we do have an invisible intangible element to us. Electronic warmth is still warmth. It is more efficiently transmitted across space and time. The content may not warm us as much or as long, but any warmth is more than nothing. Not that people before these devices weren't warmed. Perhaps they went outside and felt the sun, smelled the earth, and beheld the green leaves more for that necessary warmth. But today most of us can't buy food and shelter if we spend the necessary time doing that for our health. We are imprisoned by our technology, and instead subsist on its paler light. But there is still a person on the other end of that dim light. And that person can warm you with content about God, love, and Orthodoxy so that when you do go outside or to Church, your senses can be more informed. Maybe it's not best, but it's what some of us do.