Computers are pretty much ubiquitous these days, but I can remember a time when no one could afford one, and even if they could they wouldn’t have the room for them. I had no idea growing up just how much computers would come to dominate my life. Today I want to express my thanks for computers for a number of reasons:
- I make a living from computers. It’s not something I started out to do, mind you. They were a fun toy, but I never dreamed I’d one day support my family by working with people in search of a solution to put into words what they want their computers to do, and do so in such a way that developers can figure out how to make it happen. It’s my job to know both how the software works and how it interacts with all the other systems our company uses so as to get data to flow between them all.
- My hobby is made much easier by computers. I’m a writer, and I remember writing most of my stories on paper and then having my mother type them up for submission. Bless her patient heart. Eventually I felt sorry for putting her through that and learned to type for myself. But not long after that computers became commonplace and word processing made writing relatively simple. Of course that just means I can churn out crap faster, but I’m slowly getting better.
- I met my wife via computer. We began emailing one another, moved to chatting, and eventually got to meet face to face. I suppose it might have still happened had we had to write physical letters, but we’d probably still be in the courting stage at this point. We were an Internet romance before Internet Romances were cool.
- The world is brought closer by computers. Though I maintain relationships with my family and friends by phone as well, and as much as I rag on social media, it does help make keeping in touch easier. I’m even able to maintain my weekly game night with friends in another state and keep a hand in a business I helped start there via computers.
- Computers put me in the middle of the information jungle. I learn about things every day I’m not sure I could even find out about without computers. For all the junk and trash out there, there is also a lot of cool and interesting stuff to be found. The world is an amazing place, and get to find out just how much so thanks to computers.
There are probably more reasons I could come up with, but you get the idea. Computers are pretty awesome, and I’m grateful for them.