Windows and Life

For this blog entry, I shall say that I like Microsoft Windows, in all its incarnations since Windows 95.

I like it because of the way it parallels our human experience. Beyond that abstract connection, the only reason why I use XP is because of the 100 million programmers in the world, 99% of them write programs for Windows. And even though I use the exact same functions found in Microsoft Word 2.0, there is still this irrational lust for new stuff.

And this doesn't just apply to technology, every generation or so and there will be a 'new movement' a 'revolution', a 'paradigmn shift (ugh)' in [please choose from below]

Arts and Literature

Business and economy

Society and culture

Church and God

All that hype and packaging will fly and froth until sufficient people have bandied the overused icons and buzz words that they become stale. And then it is time for the same old brand new whatever.

But the real reason why I say I like Windows is not because it reinvents itself every 3 or 4 years, but that it comes with a neato 'Restart' function.

Windows, like life, was designed to get more boggy the longer you have been at it. Programs that refuse to stop hogging resources even after they have been switched off are like ex-beaus who have been 'terminated but stay resident' in the recesses of your psyche. Opened too many programs and they all run like quadriphlegic snails stuck in molasses? No problem! Banish them messlessly with a touch of the 'Restart' command.

Starting anew or afresh, whether it is in a new job, a new town or a new marraige is a very human way of untying the Gordian Knots of life. I guess this need for new-ness, for reinvention, goes beyond techie toys and church programs.

Sadly, I can not see how one can start with a truly  clean slate simply because one decides to. Short of doing an Eternal Sunshine, we will always carry the scars, the baggage and the influences of our life's experiences, even subconsciously. And like the movie, there is no real advantage in obliterating the experience just to get rid of the pain. Evidencing George Santayana's truism on those who fail to learn from history, the protagonist was doomed to repeat it.

We may not be able to restart our lives Windows-style, but we can ensure that on our [insert number] attempt to sort out the mess in our lives, we will do so with the bitter lessons of experience.

Comments

[the rust]

Nice entry.