Sarah Overturf

This morning when I got up, I ran some water and flipped a switch to make coffee. I turned on a light and brushed my teeth with an electric toothbrush. I opened the fridge and took out chilled milk for my cereal. Later my phone dinged with a text message. I opened my computer and checked email. How many inventions right there at my fingertips, even before I got out of my pajamas?

Not so many years ago, my morning would have looked very different. Water had to be fetched or pumped, a fire started, cows milked. Communication was a rare letter or secondhand newspaper from far away. Life is definitely both easier and quicker with our multitude of modern inventions.

          But inventions, as marvelous as they are, inevitably carry with them not just progress, but also loss. When maps were invented, we lost the ability to navigate by the stars. Now with gps, we hardly even need maps. With clocks came the loss of telling time by the sun. With electricity and the lightbulb, our work and play can stretch beyond daylight, but our bodies no longer follow the circadian rhythms of day and night. Even something as valuable as the printing press that put literature into the hands of the masses came with a loss. No longer were stories and truths shared orally and communally among a people who valued listening and memorizing. Instead, we disappeared into our private, quiet corners with our own copies of books and learned and imagined independently. The advent of television changed us yet again as we went from creating pictures in our minds to having the picture right there before us. Instead of active, imaginative listeners, we became passive observers. And how much more has the internet changed us, with endless tidbits of information to click through?

          Even simple inventions carry losses. A bread machine lets me layer in ingredients, push a button, and viola—fresh bread! How much different from proofing the yeast, stirring together a shaggy mass, and then working it with the strength of my arms to form it into something smooth and elastic.

          Or a clothes dryer—warm, dry clothes whatever the weather. But lost is a walk in the fresh air and keeping an eye on the weather. Lost too is the bending, the arm lifts. Now we go to a gym to do those things.

          I admit I like my comforts and conveniences. I am grateful to live in an age where I’m not physically laboring day in and day out, aging well past my years. But as for further inventions, honestly, I already have more than I really need. As humans, we were created to work. Our bodies need movement, our minds need to be active, and our spirits need the gratitude that comes through a job well done. So even though I’ve joked about things like how the feature I really want in a dryer is one that will fold the clothes and put them away, I don’t really want that. Even tedious tasks have a purpose, reminding me that I am a steward here and not an owner.

Before today ends, I will send some texts, cook dinner in my instant pot, and turn my lights on. But I also just might write a letter too, make some bread by hand, or light a candle when the sun goes down.

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Note: The idea of loss accompanying inventions stemmed from a variety of things I have read, but most notably these two books: The Clockwork Universe by Edward Dolnick and The Men Who United the States by Simon Winchester.