There has not been a post to this blog in two weeks because of the truth of the following statement: It is not a matter of if your computer hard drive will crash, it is only a matter of when. A hard drive crashing is not a major issue provided you have properly backed up your files. However, in my case my computer was eight years old so it was time to upgrade. Deciding what computer to purchase, deciding what software to install, and then doing both took some time.
It is incredible how dependent we have become on computers. My life felt totally disrupted because for a short period of time I could not access the information upon which I had become dependent. But in spite of the positive impact computers have on our lives, it is important to remember the words of Pablo Picasso: “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
Computers can serve many important functions such as provide us with virtually limitless information. However, computers cannot tell us what information we should acquire and they cannot tell us if the information we receive is valid. That we must decide and we do so by questioning the information we receive. The importance of asking questions is greater now than it has ever been but unfortunately asking the right questions is a lost art in today’s world. We want to skip all the hard work of asking questions; all we seem to want is the answers.
