Machines

                I’ve recently realized how easy it is to be cynical.  Cynicism has its own coolness; an elite feeling of superiority by remaining uncommitted to the ideas projected by others.  The elitist feeling of not buying in is one that has given me comfort over the years.  Perhaps the opposite of cynicism is gullibility.  The ability for some to believe whatever one tells them might be comforting.  By laying faith in the words of others maybe we abdicate our responsibility.  By not believing in anything anyone says maybe we can more easily blame others.  Taking responsibility is difficult. 

                When we are young it is difficult to take responsibility.  We shift blame.  We point to our parents or siblings.  Our culture has even coined the phrase, “my dog ate my homework” as a silly excuse for a child to not finish their work.   As I grow older I find that I have been cynical for most of my life.  I feel disdain for the gullible and solace in the sarcasm of the skeptic; but maybe it is time to get over some of that.

                I take stubborn pride in the fact that I don’t use machines.  What a lie.  I use machines every day.  Cars, phones, computers, are all machines that simplify my life.  Even though I know I could never do the work I do each day without them I feel slave to them.  I make car payments.  I need to make certain my computer is charged.  My phone is constantly begging for my attention.  I obey their wishes and they reciprocate with more production.  Our garden was going to be different.  Thoreau writes about contemplating his philosophy while raking his bean fields.  To me, if I turned over my garden with a fork and shovel I would have the same time for transcendental contemplation.  So, for the last three years, I have turned the garden each year with a fork and a spade.  Hundreds of square feet of grass have been transformed into garden with nothing but my hands.  A trailer full of rock has been pulled out of the ground by me, each one a fight against geology.

                When my grandfather called me and asked if I would rototill his garden I agreed.  Partly because I like to help anyone garden; partly because he offered to pay.  With smug pleasure I told him that I wouldn’t need to borrow his rototiller for my own garden.  His response was one that projected, “suit your self,” and he carried on to show me how to operate the machine with the familiarity of someone who has had more gardens than I have had lifetimes.  As I struggled to get the machine started he gave me a final pointer and with a pull the machine belched a cloud of disgusting smoke and I was ready to go.  My grandfather’s garden is big.  Much bigger than the farm, and all in one place, unlike ours that is broken off into beds and sections.  I started pushing the machine.  Moments later my grandfather came out and told me to not push, to let the machine do the work for me.  I did.  As I steered the rototiller up and down the garden I brewed up feelings of indignant cynicism.  How can we appreciate our work if it isn’t work?  In my mind I came up with this blog, a sermon about the evil of machines,  how they make us lazy, how we have no time to appreciate things, how we have no time to think.  Then I realized that as I was rototilling, I was thinking.  In the same way I could contemplate with my fork and spade, I was contemplating in spite of the roar of the small engine pushing the rototiller.  I looked over to the grass and saw Ethan, sitting on a lawn chair, watching.  What a weirdo.  I finished the garden in less than an hour.  My grandfather overpaid me and I went upstairs with Ethan to visit with my grandmother and the girls.  What took me weeks to do at home was accomplished before the sun hit the middle of the sky.  We left, and although I was happy to help, jadedness was in full force.

                I’m a hypocrite.  I don’t use machines, right?  The lawn, however, grows to the length of my hair.  The thought of cutting it with anything other than a gas mower is absurd to me.  This week I was finally embarrassed enough of it’s shaggy length, so I cut it.  In his usual ceremony, Ethan followed me out to the yard.  He watched me put gas in the tank, prime the engine, and start the mower with one hard pull.  Ethan has come to love mowing the lawn.  He knows I can’t hear over the roar of the engine and the thoughts inside my head.  In the beginning he follows behind me.  Whenever he thinks I might catch a glance of him from my periphery he darts across the lawn like a young foal.  Gangly and exuberant, he runs away to “hide” behind a bush, the side of the house, or my car.  The game is cute to him.  As I use this machine I see that he is engaged in me.  He is learning that machines are what are used to work.  I cynically hate being the power behind this mower, not being able to hear him or play with him.  Secretly I know that even if I don’t think that I am playing with him, he is playing with me.  Every time I catch his eye he squeals with adrenaline and dashes somewhere else.  Eventually he rolls into the uncut grass and waves his arms like he is making a snow angel.  Dandelion wishes clutter the area above him.  He volunteers to mow but doesn’t have the strength or control to push the mower.  It’s as if he knows that one day he will push a mower.  One day he will be a slave to a machine, but today he is free.  He is more gullible than cynical, but really he is neither.  He is just a kid.  How lucky.

                I love my fork and shovel.  I love my garden companions.  Most often it is Ethan, then Carly, and occasionally the girls.  Sometimes I get help, sometimes I don’t.  The therapy of extracting weeds and rocks while listening to my family is therapy.  We don’t need to make eye contact, we don’t need to be philosophical; we need to be together.  For me machines are impositions, cars drive me away from my house, farm implements are loud and impossible to speak over, and every monitor and screen (including this one) pulls our attention away from each other.  But if I didn’t have the machines I couldn’t tell you all this.  If not for the machines I wouldn’t go to my grandparent’s house and Ethan wouldn’t play his own version of hide and seek.  Maybe it is time to be a little less cynical.  Perhaps if I took the time to appreciate that which is before me rather than criticizing that which could be better I would be happier.  I would find more gratitude.  When I was a kid I wanted nothing more to be cool.  To be above anything was to show that you were cool. Cynicism and sarcasm were the stepping stones to cool.  Machines aren’t cool.  Maybe being happy is better than being cool.  I don’t like my machines, but I’ll use them.  I’ll get over myself.  I won’t blame my machines on my inability to think or connect.  I will think and connect in spite of the machines.  I will master them.  I won’t be their slave.  I’ll be happy.