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Inner Healing
Technology: Tool and Choice
by Jesse Wolf Hardin
We live in a technologically defined age, an era in which almost everything we do makes use of or is influenced by the wonders of industry and science. Being itself neutral in character, this powerful force can be harnessed to create everything from important new diagnostic tools for doctors to weaponry and mind control, from the long lasting solar electric panels I power this laptop with to dreadful nuclear warheads whose blast could seem to briefly outshine even the sun. Brain implants can be put to use by doctors to help patients manage their seizures, or by an intrusive future government seeking to further increase its control over all aspects of our behavior.
The mistake lies in our tendency to think of technology in polar terms of black and white. We may see it either as our earthly savior from discomfort and suffering, a remedy for every problem our relentless tinkering might ever cause, or else as an evil genie unleashed from its bottle, from which no good is believed to come without unjustifiably harmful and dehumanizing results. In reality, it will never be a cure-all, nor would the world suddenly become a peaceful paradise if every high tech creation were to disappear. If we’re to serve as the conscious, deeply feeling and highly discerning co-creators of our world and reality we evolved to be, we need to be able to see technology for the hugely complex, dual-edged sword that it is, and then act accordingly. We need to define our relationship to inevitable innovation not in terms of acquiescence or adoration, cynicism or rejection, but rather, personal responsibility and astute, mindful selection.
Indeed technology is not, nor will it ever be, solely benign. Those solar panels I mentioned earlier make no noise, create no exhaust, and allow us to get by without buying electricity from conglomerates that dam nearly every flowing river or burn polluting coal. On the other hand, their manufacture required a number of potentially harmful processes, beginning with the mining of its basic and finite materials. Worse yet perhaps, is that the same kinds of solar cells also power American surveillance satellites that are or have the potential to intrude upon the private lives of its own citizens. Genetically modified foods contribute to production but at great risk to ecological integrity and the continuance of evolution itself. The petroleum-based herbicides and pesticides that have helped farmers feed the growing population of the world have also damaged human and wildlife health. Life-saving antibiotics have spurred new forms of viral disease, and those given to livestock have reduced the immune response of the people eating them.
Other effects are not so easily discerned. Case in point: A person grows stronger by pulling a load, pushing hard against an obstacle, or rising to a mental challenge. Thus to the degree it ensures ease and comfort, technology threatens to take away the very sources of our strength. It promises the possibility of our living hundreds of years through the use of synthetic bionic parts, and yet it is our awareness of the finite nature of life—of how relatively short our life spans are—that we come to fully appreciate, value, and concentrate on each precious present moment. It can accelerate our day-to-day activities and increase our production, but unless we take careful countermeasures, we may find ourselves experiencing things on a more superficial level, having no time for the depth of relationship and understanding that lead to wisdom and enlightenment. Because technology gives us the means to manipulate appearance, we find ourselves increasingly surrounded by the artificial, with a reduced capacity to know the difference.
It is our job, then, to carefully examine and bodily intuit both the many benefits and possible problems, with not only the things we buy and subject ourselves to, but their components and the processes by which they were produced. This way we can ascertain their likely impact on us, on the human psyche itself, the precious diversity of culture, the wellbeing of other species and our shared environment, and the needs and direction of the living planet.
The most “appropriate” technology is that which depletes the fewest resources and does the least damage, while accomplishing the most good. Appropriate means not “efficient” so much as beneficial and beautiful, leading us not away from self, earth and spirit, but ever deeper into those experiences and relationships we think of as natural or spiritual. Likewise, the most sustainable technology is not that which can be sustained the longest, but that which helps sustain the spirit and integrity of human life, of other life forms, besieged habitat and the planetary whole.
The Apple laptop I write this on was created out of plastics made from oil, which contributes to the pressure for more drilling in sensitive places like the pristine Arctic National Refuge. There’s environmental damage and pollution associated with the production of its computer chips, and those hours spent on it writing about spirit and the natural world are hours that could have been lived outside, directly engaged in practical matters or a personal quest. Does this mean that folks like ourselves, working to preserve nature and heal humankind, should reject the latest tools of technology? Of course not; that would only be relegating such tools to people who may have more interest in managing or exploiting our world. Nor should we ignore or downplay the personal, social and environmental cost of our using them. Instead, we can contribute to the balance by making the most of such existing technologies, putting them to work for the best of reasons, on behalf of even the most non-technologically focused causes.
When we’re in touch with our aware, feeling selves, with spirit and the will of the land, we naturally know what technologies to reject or to use. We’re responsible decision makers, not antagonists or converts. We are empowered and informed by our connection to the rest of enchanted creation, impelled by a force deep inside ourselves, committed to sustenance and significance, healing and love.
Jesse Wolf Hardin is a teacher and founder of Animá nature-informed practice and the author of seven related books. He and his partners offer empowering online Medicine Woman, Shaman Path and Path of Heart correspondence courses, as well as online counsel and healing consultations. You are invited for wilderness retreats, vision quests, student internships and events at the Animá Sanctuary, a wild river canyon and ancient place of power in the enchanted Southwest: Animá Lifeways & Herbalist School, Box 688, Reserve, NM 87830, www.animacenter.org.