People hate and love their machines. We expect the world of them and they disappoint us. My Macbook crashed three times in three years. Diagnosis? My Mac guy thought it had too much space around the hard drive. He padded it with a tiny wedge of cardboard.
High tech meet low tech. Sounds like life.
During those 3 years other systems broke down, too: Mom’s Alzheimer’s ridden brain, the economy, the climate. Adaptive strategies popped up.
–I learned to dance with Mom.
–I joined the new gold rush that uses “social media, landing pages, hyperlinks and paid sites” as gold pans and created a little rainbow bridge called Mystic Tech to connect with people I love and serve.
Like my immigrant ancestors I see the internet as new real estate where I can plant orchards to cultivate and bear fruit. Meanwhile wagons, vehicles, all technology works in fits and starts. That’s the nature of matter. My guidance assures me that all “houses and monasteries” take time to build even in”fast” mediums like the internet.
Climate change?
Mystic Tech builds slowly. Each month I make a little progress on tedious bits. Though I long for a techno-knight on a white horse to free me from maintaining my hidden monastery, it’s the same old story. Take small steps, keep showing up, and find solutions when a wagon wheel cracks.
Luckily, I’ve begun to enjoy the parallels between Body and Soul and computer life. I believe the internet arose from an intuitive understanding of the vast physical web that has long offered people a realm of virtual connections, mystic data bases, hyperlinks, and sudden downloads. In all realms I practice the following wisdom.
- Be not afraid. The web is mighty. I’ll get what I need when I need it.
- Technology offers access. Access empowers. Hang in there.
- Patience is the path forward. Computers don’t respond to yelling.
- Back up plans are key. Time Machine, Crash Plan, DropBox rocks!
- Though my laptop dies I don’t. I just lose time.
- Play with techno-bloopers. When skype freezes dance around it.
- When a system isn’t friendly, wait for a better one.
- Decent connection and streaming isn’t consistent. Lower expectations to lower stress.
- Friendly, trustworthy blog support is a treasure. Still looking.
- Is it overkill to sync two computers, a smart phone, and ipad?
- Use tried and true systems: I go to Paypal and receive checks. I use one theme for several WordPress blogs and a web.com blog for one that integrates paypal. I connect via email, Facebook for posts, and Constant Contact for newsletters. I publish on Issuu and youtube. Skype and Go2meeting are my live platforms.
As you can see I am getting to be a mystic techie. I don’t know what its worth. 
I am earning an income stream that is small but meaningful to me.
Most of the time I am just happy to play, pray, and raise my hand up to those who connect back across the web.
It’s always nice when someone shows me that they are playing along through a comment and materializes as a real human being. That’s what comments and links are for.
I am writing a computer users prayer. Do you have one you’d like to share? I’ll send a special online St Isodore shrine to any who comment!
Bows and Blessings!