One True God – Tech

Earlier, the elder would be able to recede to the life of a teacher or rest, to enjoy the fruits of his work through his family and be a source of guidance and wisdom. The young would wander amidst and learn about themselves, their trades and their human connections into adulthood. Tech, or the machine, like most human systems, has a tendency to cancerously expand by consuming labor. But unlike other systems, it is self-improving and is able to simplify labor and bring its virtue to those that were previously free from it. Now, it cannot just get by with the efforts of younger adults and middle aged bodies – it needs more.

Now the elder could see his work, live longer to catch new illnesses, and then reach the cafeteria through a ramp (the magnifier on his screen, the insurance and the ramp were required by some law) – work was all he has, since there was no one else back home.

And then the machine got faster, so now it needs even younger bodies which have quick reflexes, low attention, high anxiety and sleepless dreams (the screens, the pills and the ideas were also requied by some law). Eventually, the much-predicted cybernetic fusion of tech and labor will happen with the pre-teen Tiktok celebrity wired into a headset taking your order at the McDonald’s drive-through. Screens are all she has, since there is no one else back at home.

But the machine is generous to you. It lets you work from the comfort of your home so that you only step out to buy. And in the drive-through line you notice the prices increase and portions become smaller, but you still think it is nothing compared to the coming tax-hike (paying for Fame University loans, preserving a corrupt puppet regime and grandpa’s social security also required by some law). Your desk, your work, your ‘productivity station’ is all you have, since there is no one else here at home.

Old Car Smell

The carcinogenic new car smell is often prized and romanticized, but we never mention the smell of old cars; part motor oil, part petrichor – the smell of the road and the trips it had been on. And now that too is a rarity to come across, because how the design of the vehicle-cabins has evolved.

In the years when cars did not ship at default with an air conditioner and all there was a fan, the body was not designed to seal the environment within the car from the elements, at least not in the same way as it is done today. And as the car would get older, the smell of the road crept in. The lack of comfort compared to the modern car could also be a sign of the machine being closer to its environment than it is now, distant from our range of comforts yet more truthful to what it was and which soaked in everything it had gone through. In these cars, just by the mere smell, one could accurately guess where they had been parked and whether people took care of them or not, or even whether they drove them too much or too little. Car fresheners would also ride the strong foundation of these natural smells, unlike today where they just hit you in the face with the sweaty smell of a closed air conditioned chamber. The only thing I can accurately guess in the modern car is whether someone ate an EggMcMuffin in it in the past two days. And maybe there is a hint of this old car smell on an old public bus, but it still lacks the personal character and lies in public space and use.

But hey, now we are far from that, cars are not cars anymore – just electric carts which you would not even have to drive in a few years. But blessed would be those who saw the automobile at its most raw – a man made machine which was very much a part of its environment, with its own unique smell. Among the various descriptable and undescriptable, tangible and intangible feelings of driving and owning a car, the smell will also be something we will miss when we entirely stop driving as a society.