new column:

Technical Difficulties

but

Why Dropping Your Cell Phone in a Jacuzzi Isn’t the End of the World

I am not one who is at all adept at technology. For that matter, actually, I’m not adept at anything even mechanical.

I’ve always had this difficulty. When I was a kid, my father used to try to get me to learn about fixing the family car. Uh, yeah… that didn’t exactly work. I would stand there, staring off into space and wondering how long it would be before we would both realize that I wasn’t attuned to the situation. I would try and pay attention. I really would. And I would think to myself, “Reese, you can do this. This obviously makes logical sense. It can’t be that complicated.” And then eventually, my father would ask for some kind of strange wrench or something and I would be lost. No matter how ‘obvious’ it all was, I was lost.

And it’s not like I was an idiot. I knew things. In fact, I was what you called ‘book smart.’ I knew a lot of things. I just didn’t know how to do anything with my education. I got straight A’s in school, but I couldn’t figure out how to nail two pieces of wood together. My family would tease me all the time about being smart at school, but having no ‘common sense.’ I suppose that was true. But the reality is, it had more to do with my inability to get a handle on anything mechanical.

I was reminded of all of this over the last few weeks as I had several incidents that were par for the course in my continued comedic-tragedy in all matters technical.

It’s the little things, you know… My television remote control of about 15 years died. Well, it didn’t technically die; it just kinda slowly lost function in some of the buttons. Sometimes the buttons would work; sometimes they wouldn’t. I began banging the remote against the wall intermittently in order to regain control. Sometimes that would work; sometimes it wouldn’t. It wasn’t the batteries; it was the buttons that lost power.

Now, this meant something terrible: I would have to figure out how to buy a new remote control for my life. Other regular people do this kind of normal thing all of the time. So it shouldn’t be hard. But then, um, yeah. After months of banging the remote control until there really wasn’t much ability left in the thing, I finally made my way to the drugstore and bought a new remote control. I opened it up at home, looked at the book of directions, and stared blankly into space. I had no idea what to do. Yes, the directions are sitting in front of me, but Lord help me; I had no idea what to do. It was a lost cause. I put all of that away, banged on my remote control again, and watched me some tellie before going to bed.

Weeks went by and I would once in a while pick up the book and the new remote and stare at them both. I kept dreaming that it would work somehow magically. Finally I started to put the obviously-sensible directions together in my mind over and over again and I kept pressing buttons for some kind of Direct Remote hookup thingamajigger. But it wouldn’t work. I kept trying and trying and nothing would work. So I put it away, banged on my old remote a few times, and kept on regretting my inabilities.

And where o where was my father through all of this? There are many times I wish he were around to simply deal with these issues for me. Because I have no clue.

Years ago, my sister bought me a storage cabinet and it came ‘required assembly.’ I spent months on that thing and the only thing I accomplished was putting the pieces back in the box. My father came to visit one weekend months later and had the whole thing put together in an hour.

Again, I don’t get mechanics and I don’t get technology. My brain doesn’t work that way. But other people do. And thank God for them! Because if it wasn’t for them and their abilities, I would be lost.

The point of these stories is that we all have our own abilities. In this diverse world of ours, we grow further and farther as a community when we value and welcome each other’s diverse abilities and backgrounds. My inabilities at anything mechanical are softened by my father’s and other’s abilities to be mechanical. And sometimes I in turn enhance and bring some type of assistance to other people’s lives through my abilities—whatever they may be specifically.

We all inherently strengthen each other. It really does ‘take a community to raise a child,’ not necessarily because none of us can’t on our own, but because in working together and bringing forth each of our own individual assets communally we offer something greater.

Diversity isn’t about being politically correct or just some buzzword. It’s a value that realizes we all enhance each other more than we may know. Our community is stronger when we value our differences and utilize their combined power for the good of our own future. (It’s kinda like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers combining their power into Megazord; it really is.) Our coordinate efforts and combined abilities make us unstoppable and strengthen our movement. That’s what recognizing and valuing diversity is all about.

Oh, and yeah, I did drop my cell phone in a jacuzzi this month, resulting in its departure from this world and its return to the sea. And yeah, that’s pretty much the usual for me with anything technical in my life. I’m where all things mechanical come to die. But thankfully there are people who know technology and can hook me back up right away!