I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly materialistic person. I didn’t own an iPod. Never wore a Swatch watch or a pair of Guess jeans. The only jewelry I own is my wedding ring. I still drive a rusty old pickup truck with a carbureted gas engine, a manual transmission, manual locks, manual windows, manual steering, manual brakes, no radio, and no air conditioning. Nevertheless, I have grown accustomed to having some creature comforts in my life, such as the rust-free, newer pickup truck that I also drive; the one with a fuel-injected turbo-diesel engine, an automatic transmission, power locks, power windows, power steering, power brakes, power seats, power mirrors, Bluetooth and satellite radio, and ice-cold, dual-zone air conditioning.
Come to think of it, as I look around my house, I can see that I have grown dependent on more than a few modern conveniences. The laptop computer I’m typing this story on, the iPhone beside me, the TV in front of me, the refrigerator, microwave, air fryer, coffee maker, and oven in the kitchen. Electricity. Indoor plumbing. Flush toilets. The internet. A new central heat and AC unit that cost more than four out of the five vehicles in my family’s fleet.
I suppose I might be slightly materialistic.
I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly trendy person either. Sometimes I’m a little “late to the game” as they say. Last Friday, for instance, I finally sat down to read the dystopian novel “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel. This extraordinary book was so popular that it won the Arthur C. Clark Award and became the Daniel Boone Regional Library’s “One Read” book back in 2015.
“Station Eleven” is about a virus that wipes out most of the human population on Earth, which causes civilization to completely collapse. Imagine trying to survive in a world with no electricity, no phones, no running water, no hospitals, and no modern transportation. The few remaining people who were spared by the pandemic become mostly nomadic hunter-gatherers who gradually forget what life had been like before the collapse.
Unlike some post-apocalyptic novels, “Station Eleven” is not a gory bloodbath of violence and hopelessness. Although 99.9% of the population dies, the book is not about death. Neither is it simply a story about survival. Instead, the book is about life—and never taking anything in this life for granted.
When was the last time you took a moment to really appreciate all that you have in life? Did you ever ponder the miracle that is your smart phone for example? In order for you to scroll through Facebook on your phone, a lot of things had to happen first. Ben Franklin started thinking about the nature of electricity over two hundred years ago. Society advanced for another hundred years or so before Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla started thinking about how to harness electricity. Engineers designed coal-fired power plants, which could not have been possible without the discovery of coal and the advent of coal mining first. Hydro-electric dams were also built, which depended on the development of cement and steel technology. Electrical grids, power transmission stations, and light poles were invented and installed in towns and cities throughout the world.
Marconi and Bell invented and advanced telegraph and telephone technology. Radio waves were detected, studied, and eventually transmitted and received by scientists. The first radios and televisions were developed. Broadcast radio and television stations were built, staffed, and equipped. The space race began. Satellites were designed and rockets and spaceships were built to launch them into Earth’s orbit by some more very smart people. Radio transmissions were sent to the moon and beyond.
Personal computers, cellphones, and the internet were invented. Mark Zuckerberg decided to make an electronic version of college face books that would allow friends to stay in touch online. Social networking using a laptop computer eventually led to development of the Facebook app that you use on your smartphone today thanks to the further development of wireless technology and cellular telephones.
When I think about everything that had to happen between Ben Franklin flying his kite in a thunderstorm and me typing this story on my laptop computer, emailing it to my publisher, Gene sending it electronically to the printer, and you reading it after receiving it in your mailbox at the end of your driveway or on your smartphone, I have to admit that the whole thing is pretty miraculous.
The miracle of modern technology is something no reader of “Station Eleven” should ever take for granted again. But the author made it clear that those technological miracles were only possible because of the will of the human race. Our capacity to recognize problems and work out solutions to those problems is also miraculous, as is our ability to come together for the benefit of society.
Maybe I am a materialist, but at least I’m a materialist who will never again take what the world gives me for granted, including my friends and family, my smartphone, and a pair of Chevy trucks.
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