For the first time in several years, my home was momentarily without power. A crew from the utility company was hard at work before nine o'clock, replacing some of the aging electrical cables that run the length of the road — cables likely installed around the time I was born when this neighborhood sprang into existence from what used to be a peach farm.
A modern home becomes eerily quiet when its electricity supply dries up. The incessant hums from key appliances — refrigerators, dehumidifiers, air conditioners — cease. My home office, with its myriad electronics, suddenly shifts into a lower-power mode as battery backups kick in to keep the essentials running. Music from the wireless speakers spaced throughout the house stops, and, thanks to the lack of radio interference from the neighbors, mobile devices no longer jump from access point to access point as they move from one side of the house to the other.
Yes, my home network has its dedicated battery in the event of a power failure, despite how rare such occurrences are. My primary computer is a notebook with a battery that still delivers a full day of work, so long as I’m not encoding video or powering a plethora of external devices. In the event of a prolonged outage, I can draw power from a trio of Anker batteries that I keep fully charged for road trips where cameras and drones are working overtime.
As I sit in the now-still house, two thoughts dance in my head: a question and a statement.
Why did I prioritize battery power for the network over the fridge? and This is the lap of luxury.
The first question was wholly rhetorical. The network is prioritized because I have a web server in the house, and without the network, nobody can access it. It would also be foolish for me to be completely without access to the internet, given that it’s one of the core utilities I depend on for my job. The fridge, while important, can maintain a safe temperature for a few hours without power, so long as I don’t open the doors more than once or twice.
The lap of luxury thought sparked a series of reflections, many of which would require thousands of words to explore. There’s no denying that I am among the most fortunate humans to have ever existed. If you’re reading this, there’s a high probability that you are, too. Sure, we have our individual challenges, but we live in a time where the ingenuity of thousands has led to the comfort of billions.
When our grandparents were our age, color TVs were new and amazing. When our great-grandparents were our age, there might have been one or two telephones in the community. When our great-great-grandparents were our age, major newspapers were warning that “radio was going to make the printed word obsolete”1. As we continue to refine our tools, we continue to make today a little bit better than yesterday. What a wonderful mission for humanity!
Despite the doom and gloom narratives that parade gleefully across the web and TV, I’m not buying the stories they tell. Yes, we can do things better and with less mess, but this is true for everything from power generation to making a tuna sandwich. What we — as a species — need to do is continue the steady process of making tomorrow slightly better than today. Anything less is disrespectful to the efforts of every generation that came before us.
I kid you not. This was a "real" concern for some editors at major newspapers.