Unexpected things happening, that cause uncomfortable feelings

[Suzanne]

So, my husband and I, are sitting down, doing our day text ie reading scriptures, over coffee and then went to do a bit of study ( for our meeting later) and suddenly, the light flickers off and then on and then off and stayed off!

My thoughts were: oh we don't have electricity and then, sort of paused and then thought: ah, thank goodness we have a gas camping stove and then: oh such a bad idea having everything nearly electric ie my oven and stove.

Well, gas stove came out and then realised that I can't defrost the bread and so, despite my husband not enjoying homemade bread, he accepting my "reluctant" offer of my granary bread and then said, that we could use the frozen bread for toast.

Then thought: oh flip; have to shower in the dark. My tablet battery was low and then not and I had two bars on my phone battery and so, because I cannot cope with silence, put some music on and all the while thinking:

I hate relying on modern technology and how can I achieve the same goals but without electricity? I also thought: we take so much for granted and how ill equipped we are for emergencies and hating modern technology for causing me to be so flipping dependent on it!

Then start to have deep respect for the electricity board and shame that I barely think of them usually, but thanks to those workers, we have this amazing privilege of electricity.

Thankfully, I don't need electricity to read or do cross stitching and thus, pleased about that.

One can be so dulled into a sense of false security.

I even thought: I hate that I use online to solve a problem.

One thing I didn't do and that was switch on the light to the bathroom lol

But I do feel shame that I am completely lost without electricity.

 

[Progster]

I hate it when the electricity goes off - since about 80% of my daily activities involved electricity one way or another, including work, it really disrupts my routine. It's better when I have warning of it and can plan, but when it suddenly happens it really annoys me.

But just like anything else, it has it's advantages and drawbacks. The advantages being that it allows me to do so many things with so much ease, it frees my time up from the drudgery of chores such as washing clothes which would take hours to do by hand, and gives me access to knowledge and entertainment, it enables me to make connections with others across the world in real time, something that would have been impossible 100 years ago.

The disadvantages are that we've unlearnt some of the skills and trades which in the past had taken years to master. The old crafts are just about gone; carpenters, tailors/dressmakers, blacksmiths have gone from being mainstream to being quaint curiosities, their jobs having been taken over by machines. Not to mention the factories which can now increase their production and the working hours of their workforce, legally or otherwise, by having them work until late in the night. And how many people can honestly say that they cook a meal from scratch every day? It's all too easy just to buy a ready meal from the supermarket and stick it in the microwave to heat it up.

But I don't entertain any romantic notions of returning to a more simple, fugal way of life, and it would be naive to think that such a thing could be possible. The truth is that once we've learnt to have these conveniences in our life, there's no turning back. I will be the first to admit that I enjoy having my PC, which runs on electricity, I enjoy watching documentaries on TV or on my computer, and the fact that I have any information I want at my fingertips, as as for doing without a washing machine, no thanks, not going there again. And, most importantly, I take comfort in the fact that if I get sick, there are doctors in hospitals equiped with the latest technology waiting to help me get well.

However, I do believe that we take electricity for granted. The energy that we use is not infinite and use should not become abuse. So I do try not to use any more than I need, and make sure that I switch devices off when I'm not using them; in fact, switching lights off which others have left on has become an obsession with me. It's in such unnecessary waste of energy that we can see just how much people can take electricity for granted.