Hacking Our Tech, or Our Tech Hacking Us
About a year ago, Ming called me up."Is there a body mod to make my finger tip smaller?"I paused, well, yes, likely there is, I thought... but..."Why do you want to make your finger smaller?""Because on my iPhone, I keep hitting the wrong buttons. My fingers are too fat. I can't make it work right.""So, let me get this straight, you want to modify your body... to fit your technology?""Well, yeah!"It seemed so obvious to her, but the idea confounded me.We have choices in our life. Modify the technology to fit our life, our our life to fit our technology. Technology is supposedly this thing that makes our life easier, but how many of us have contorted ourselves around, changed our flesh, spirit or life, to make this "easier" thing somehow fit?The same applies for religion, which in my opinion is a form of faith technology. Is religion there to inform our lives, give us richness and meaning, an opportunity to connect, the passion to lend to our drive- or is it there to contort us into something that was not natural for our being? Just like the iPhone, there are folks that designed it that it worked perfect for... and then there are those of us, whose fingers don't quite work on the pad. So we have choices- stay in the system, using the specific tech, and change our bodies and beings... or leave the system and finding something new. If the iPhone didn't work, what about the Droid, the Blackberry?But there are those of us who find that none of the techs work. None of the religions fit quite right. They don't suit our needs.And of these folks, I say there is another choice. Why bitch that none of them fit, or just move from tech to tech, or religion to religion, with nothing working factory spec?Hack.Hack the technology. Modify it, before it modifies us... or create a dance between the two options!Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Feri, Wicca... none of them worked straight out of the box for me. But all the technology WORKED. It has wisdom, it has information- and for some folks, their fingers are perfect for it. They can plug in and use the product as is. But for me, I have had to hack the code a bit to fit into the programs. I have to create internal translations. I have to understand that in my brain "hell" is "eternal discontent until we right ourselves with our dharma" for example. Its a hack. It lets me read all about hell and *get* the message there, that in "sinning" against "god and nature" that I go to "hell"- its not bad information, its just not speaking in the tongues of my truth. There is still info there.So I asked Ming..."Is there an app for that?""For what, folding my finger smaller? Maybe there is a brace that would work...""No, an app that would turn the keyboard sideways and make it easier for you to type."There was. She bought it and used it.And you know what? When the iPhone3 came out, that app was standard issue.Sometimes, if enough folks hack the same system... the companies and dogmas hear, and change the code on the factory issues too. The next folks, they get to grow from the work we do as world hackers, faith hackers, love hackers, sex hackers... reality hackers.So, are you hacking your tech, or is your tech hacking you?