Blackout inspires reflection

By Nate Adams
Collegian Editor
April 9, 2008

There’s nothing like a blackout to remind a person just how much technology has become a part of our lives.  Of course, it wasn’t really all that big an inconvenience Monday night. Considering the power was off for about 40 minutes total, and there were parts of campus like the library that still had lights and Internet, no one can really complain too much.  

Heck, in many ways, the blackout last night was fun for me. After we got over the initial shock of everything shutting off at once, some of my fellow editors, the more juvenile (read: more awesome) ones immediately began hatching plans to play pitch-black hide and seek.

 Still, our reliance on technology cannot be overstated. If the blackout had gone longer than, say, two hours, I guarantee that we as a campus would have felt the sting. How long do you suppose you could sit in the dark before you start to miss your DVDs, your video games? How long before you jones for some cable television? When would you start to get a junkie’s itch from lack of instant messaging and Internet connection?

 Forget distractions for a minute and ask yourself this: How long could you sit in the dark, with nothing but the light of a cell phone to illuminate your dark and meaningless life? How many blankets would it take for you to forget that the heat is off and you’re sitting in a cold, dark room?

 It’s at times like these, when the world is quiet and devoid of its soft electronic hum that complete computer control, a la The Terminator, doesn’t seem so bad.

 Of course, that wasn’t the case last night. Things got fixed before anyone was too bummed, so it’s no big deal. Sure, the Internet was down for a while, but at least the lights were on, and at least our computers and TVs were working. And odds are good that those DVDs and TV shows and iTunes libraries went right back to being taken for granted once the lights got switched back on.

 It shouldn’t take an underground transistor explosion for us to be thankful for what we’ve got.

 I’m not really the kind of guy to get on my soapbox, but I feel the need to point out how well off we all are as college students. We’ve all got access to the luxuries we supposedly can’t live without, like computers and such. We’ve got the basics like heat and light and telephone communication, land-line or otherwise. We’ve got it good.

 Odds are, there are families within two miles of here that cannot say the same. I’m glad that PECO or whoever got things back on track so quickly. I’m glad I’ve got my distractions back. I only hope that I won’t be so quick to forget how lucky I am that I have distractions.

adamsn1@lasalle.edu