It demands my presence. When I am away front of it, it calls my name. It screams for attention. It consumes my time. It’s addictive. Like a magician and his swinging watch, it has a hypnotic power over me.
This box in front of me. The computer. I love it. Something about the backlighting holds my focus day or night. While I am at its mercy regarding its hold on my mind, I do have choices of what to do while being held by its power. So I don’t resist its clutch. I don’t fight against its hold or wrestle its grip. Instead I sit safely and almost comfortably for periods of time longer than is physically reasonable, or smart.
It’s where I am able to be productive. It requires no walking, no running, no leg movement of any kind. It asks nothing of me, it only gives (I can say that only because Mr. Legs does all of the maintenance it requires). It is where I can read for pleasure, learn, do research, communicate with friends and family, and shop. It is where I can collect and organize photos and memories, documents, family history and countless other things. Everything is available with only a few clicks on the keyboard. I can find just about anything on it, put whatever I want in it and then retrieve it at a moment’s notice. Like a game of catch, I toss things to it and grasp things back from it.
It is a library, a mall, a stack of photo albums, a file cabinet, a recipe box, a post office, a teacher, a tutor, a therapist, a comedian, pastor, a friend. It’s no wonder I am drawn to it and allow its grip to remain on me without resistance. I am its willing captive.
It had become frustrating to use it, but voice recognition software came to my rescue and I now once again am able to transfer my thoughts to the screen in front of me in a reasonable time frame.
It’s an amazing equalizer – an escape from my condition and its limitations because, sitting in front of it, I am equal to everybody else doing the same thing. My computer. It’s my favorite non-living thing and my favorite place in the house. It’s my window to the world and offers a string of adventures, one after another.
Climbing Downhill 
It’s amazing how that dang computer has changed our world!
Great post.
Interested in how you use the voice recognition. I write everything out longhand before I type, but my mind works faster than my hands so I tend to lose track of my thoughts.