Dark times…literally
Today felt like a small trip back in time.
A full day without electricity.
No internet.
No AI.
No constant hum of “always on.”
The power came and went so often that eventually I stopped checking and just… waited. At one point, I was genuinely grateful that nothing in the freezer would spoil. That’s where the bar was.
And it made me wonder:
What if this wasn’t a one-off?
If we lost electricity for good, we wouldn’t just lose tools… we’d lose habits.
We’d lose the reflex to refresh, to scroll, to outsource thinking and memory.
At first, I think most of us would do nothing.
We’d wait. Stare at dead screens. Feel restless.
Then something else would happen.
We’d talk again.
We’d notice daylight.
Kids would invent games out of nothing.
Adults would remember how to fix, cook, build, argue, tell stories, and sit with silence.
The Dark Ages weren’t dark because there was no electricity.
They were dark because knowledge became fragile and centralized.
Days like today don’t make me anti-technology.
They make me pro-resilience.
AI and the internet are incredible tools; but they shouldn’t be the only muscles we’ve trained.
We still have grass.
We still have sand.
And we still have each other.
Maybe the real question isn’t what would we do without technology?
Maybe it’s who are we without it?
And that might be a question worth sitting with.
When I moved to another place, at first, I didn't know anyone. Procrastinated connecting to others until I went to yet another place. Since the pandemic, I know the value of connecting to our neighbourhood. Being able to walk to someone whose heater is still humming when ours fails. Owning a bicycle when all the buses in town are turning towards electricity — not knowing how long they could be fed. Training our brains, knowing numbers and addresses by heart.