without internet!

All week, I’ve been without a convenient internet connection. And I’ve paid the price.

All day Monday, I sat on pins and needles, trying to find out if my fantasy team had won or lost their matchup this week (they won!). This is important stuff!

Then I struggled with the 3G connection on my iPhone trying to find out the weather forecast. I finally gave up.

I also wanted post to this blog, but I just couldn’t find a good internet connection to do it.

Life is hard … without the internet. Especially when you live in the cloud. Buyer beware!

I love the advantages that the cloud brings (see my last post), but none of those are any good without decent internet, and I’ve really noticed that this week. For so many of us, technology performs such amazing tricks that we begin to expect miracles. With the right technology, we begin to think, we can solve any problem.

The problem is, there are always problems. And most of us are beginning realize this. Adoption of technology is very much like the path of adjusting to a new culture (or spouse): the honeymoon (we romanticize it); the near divorce, (we almost hate it); and finally, the successful marriage (we appreciate all of its wonderful traits while accepting some that we will never love.)

I think many people are now reaching the last phase with technology – a content marriage. We are beginning to reach a certain understanding: if this technology is going to work for me, I am going to have to accept some rough patches, to be creative in problem solving, and to ask for help.

With our growing reliance on the cloud, we face an even greater threat to our technologically dependent lifestyle – the lack of internet connection. Without internet, The Could is as useful to us as any other cloud floating in the sky. If we live in a modern, vibrant city, we may be lucky enough to have constant, reliable connections (and grow very dependent on those). However, the moment we move away from these safe situations, we encounter unknown difficulties, and our lifeline to the outer world can be desperately cut off.

So, like any other challenge in life, we learn to compromise our dreams to match the reality around us: the cloud works, and it can work well, but you need to have a backup, and you need to be a creative problem-solver. If the internet goes down, what else can you do? Can you store documents on your desktop? Can you patch together a connection with your phone? Can you communicate with text instead of email?

There is no simple solution, but there is usually a solution of some sort, especially if you plan ahead. And then, when there isn’t … well, it’s time to appreciate our grandparents, who also lived, survived, and succeeded without the internet!