Candles

What before candles gave, lightbulbs now dispense. They've transformed pitch-black houses and streets into ever-functional, predictable facilities.

We don't have to think about it anymore. We just turn on the light switch and BAM, we get light. We assume its pervasiveness. We rely on it fully. It removes restrictions, limitations, allows us removal from sunlight.

"We don't even have to think about it". Is that really good? Effortless, yes. Convenient, yes. Simple, yes. It effectively removes the past hassles of, in this case, obtaining candles or kerosene, finding a spark or a flame to light it with, keeping track of remaining combustible, taking care of not burning any nearby objects, and taking the light with you wherever you wanted light. It seems effortful, indeed. I'm sure that to pre-electrical humans, though, it was no more a hassle than it is for us today to go grocery shopping, or to have to move to be somewhere else. But when the possibility is given to you of not thinking about it, then you suddenly don't want to. For instance, people now rarely bother with memorizing phone numbers once they are stored in their mobile device. Many rarely bother to memorize anything at all, once it has been digitized and is available in Wikipedia or in their email account. Why would they? Why would they bother to lug around thousands of bits and pieces of information inside their busy brains, when they can always access any of them on demand through the wireless computer networks? It seems unnecessary.

But as we adopt each piece of convenience, we relinquish pieces of our usefulness, our skills. The skills required to deal with the previous hassles begin to disappear. Handwriting, carpentry, metalworking, cooking, washing clothes, fixing clothes, memorizing, horseback riding. What are we missing out on? Many details.

And it is details that enhance a reality, that make it crisper, fuller, more complicated, more intricate. They implement the possibilities that, though expanded by convenience, are also ironically obscured by it.

So I exhort anyone and everyone who reads this: focus on details. Learn new skills, whether useful or not. Your own situation, wants, and your instinct should guide you onto what you can learn. Apply your potential. Somewhere. Anywhere. Applying your potential is one of those things that gets easier the more you do it. Or at least, you get more confidence in its worth.