When I was a kid and I was baffled by how something worked, Mom or Dad could explain it to me in a couple short sentences, and then I was up to speed.
When I wanted to know how the house got warm in the winter, Dad took me to the coal furnace in the basement and showed me where he shoveled in the coal, where the ashes and cinder clinkers collected, and how the hot air rose up through the ductwork to warm the rooms above where we lived. And just like that, it all made sense.
But those sensible furnaces have gone extinct, just like the ancient plants that became the coal that fired them. Today in my house, I go to the hallway and push buttons on a box on the wall, and the room gets warmer or cooler.
And I have no idea how it works.
When I was a kid and I wanted to know how a meal got made, Mom gathered meat and potatoes and carrots and celery and put them all into a pot, which she shoved into the oven. She turned a dial, lit a match and held it into a tiny hole, and with a soft whump a fire flared beneath the bottom panel of the oven. She turned the dial left or right to raise or lower the heat, until the kitchen was filled with the tempting aroma of the evening’s meal. And it all made sense.
But today a microwave oven hangs near the stove in my house, just waiting for me to shove in a prepackaged box or bowl and to push a button to have dinner ready a few minutes later, while the plate holding the hot food stays cool.
And I have no idea how it works.
Dad could raise the hood of the car and show me the engine, explaining what every belt, fan, wire and motor did to make the car go, and it all made sense. Today I raise the hood of my car and what I find inside looks more like an appliance than an engine. And I have no idea how it works.
Mom could sit at a typewriter and show me how to crank paper onto a roller, then hit a key that raised a lever that hit an inked tape to print a letter onto the paper, and it all made sense. Today I sit at a computer keyboard watching letters appear on a screen, hit a key, then listen to a machine across the room spit out a piece of paper with words on it. And I have no idea how it works.
When the family took a trip, we filled the car with maps of every state we would travel through, and I could follow our progress inch by inch. Given enough room, I could lay the maps end to end and create a picture of the entire country. Today I sit behind the wheel—usually only half aware of what road I’m on—and wait for a lady’s voice to come from the dashboard telling me that I will have to turn in a mile or so onto a road whose name I will also ignore, because I know the voice will tell me what my next move will be when the time comes. And I have no idea how it works.
My grandmother knew how to darn a holey sock. My grandfather knew how to cobble a new heel onto a shoe.
Today, when their clothes get tattered, my grandkids know where Walmart is.
But you can’t blame them for not knowing how to fix something that doesn’t work, because somebody went and changed how things work, beyond anybody’s ability to explain it to them.
Once upon a time, it paid to get older because every day you could learn more and more about how the world worked, and how to keep it working. All you had to do was ask all the right questions.
Every time an older person died, we mourned not only their loss but also the loss of all the depth and breadth of knowledge they held in their head. We missed them because they knew how things worked, and how to fix things if they didn’t.
And I was well on my way to becoming one of them. When my record player didn’t work right I could replace the needle, and maybe even rewire the plug if necessary.
But somehow it all changed, because the things in our life changed. Somehow it didn’t seem important—or even possible—to understand how something worked or what to do with it when it stopped working. Somehow we accepted that the machines were just smarter and more complex than we were, and that we would have to trust them to do their job when we pushed the button.
And today, when the button doesn’t work, we just look at each other and say, “Well, what now?” In the absence of knowledge, our only choice is to throw the machine away and buy a new one to replace it—one that’s even further beyond our understanding.
I don’t suppose it bothers little kids these days that they don’t know how their Kindle or iPod works, because when they ask Daddy or Mommy about it the answer is always pretty much the same: “You just push that button, and there you go.” Never mind that Daddy or Mommy have no more idea what lies beneath that button than their kids do.
And when the oldest among us pass on to go wherever the coal furnace or the typewriter roller have gone, will anybody miss all the knowledge we will take with us to the grave?
Don’t ask me. I don’t know.
