Have you ever been called a “Luddite”? Well, I have — by my normally very kind husband.
Here’s why …
Ned Ludd was an English factory worker who went berserk in 1779 and destroyed weaving machinery because he feared it would make human workers obsolete. Several years later, a group of weavers went on a similar rampage and were dubbed “Luddites.”
The term now means “one who opposes technological change.”
My computer-guru husband simply cannot grasp how technologically challenged I am, and when I totally exasperate him, he vents by calling me a Luddite.
I have yet to go on a destructive rampage like the Luddites of yore, but I’ve come pretty doggone close recently as I’m learning to use a new computer and new software. Had we not recently gotten rid of all the baseball bats in our garage, I might have smashed my new laptop to smithereens by now. But lacking a weapon and still possessing a scrap of sanity, I have thus far restrained my destructive impulses.
I know I should be grateful for this new computer, and I am… sort of. But right now my days are filled with technical glitches and mind-melting cyber-challenges.
By the way, why do Bill Gates and his Birkenstock-wearing minions feel compelled to make perfectly good software obsolete? (Ooh… ooh … pick me … I know this one — to MAKE MORE MONEY!)
It took me a LONG time to learn the programs I use to do the work I do … and now some of that software won’t run on my new computer. Ugh.
This old dog is having to learn new tricks … and frankly, it’s making me want to roll over and play dead. My brain feels on the verge of spontaneous combustion.
I know I should charge into each new day thinking, “This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” But now my first conscious thought is usually, “Oh no — I have to get up and face that computer.”
My ignorance, incompetence and ineptitude are ever before me, and it’s driving me nuts. I got so overwhelmed the other day that I impulsively walked away from my computer and drove to the grocery store, not because I needed groceries, but because I needed to do something I know how to do.
I’m sure there’s an important life lesson in this, and when I stop being so frustrated, I promise I’ll learn it. I suspect it has something to do with humility, and I hate those lessons.
It’s not a bad thing to know how much we don’t know, but it sure doesn’t feel good.
In fact, it feels so bad that we all run the risk of becoming Luddites in various areas of our lives, resisting and rejecting everything that threatens our comfy status quo.
The saddest of all are spiritual Luddites, who foolishly deny the reality of a God who calls them to a new life in relationship with Himself.
God offers them light, but they choose to remain in the dark.
I will never understand technology, but I certainly embrace its benefits. I can’t fully understand God, but I choose to embrace Him nonetheless.
Am I a computer Luddite? Sometimes, even though the change I resist ultimately enhances my life in some way.
But a spiritual Luddite? No way. It is eternally, foolishly fatal to reject God.
I can live without a laptop, but not without a Savior.