No! Why? What if... Aaargh. All right then!

Why do we rely so much on things that we know so little about?

Take, for instance, a computer. Used on a daily basis for various tasks, this wonderful machine allows you to surf the Internet, to consign your every precious thought for posterity, to fill your tax report and to play chess. It easily becomes your main means of communication with the world, your most discreet confidant, the repository of all your knowledge. It is an extension of you. Your computer improves your life in significant ways. That is, until it starts ruining it.

Indeed, one day your computer starts freezing, gives you incomprehensible messages when you are asking it to perform simple tasks or simply stops responding to your input, turns a deaf ear to your supplications. Then you go through the five following stages :

• Denial and isolation : there is no real problem with it. If I just turn it off and leave it in a corner for a while, it will be fine the next time I turn it on.
• Anger : The bloody thing is still not working the next time you attempt to use it and you are angry at it for the hurt it inflicts on you. You may even be angry with yourself for letting this take place even if, realistically, nothing could have stopped it.
• Bargaining : At this stage, you consider making bargains with your computer such as, "If I change your hard drive or give you a brand new antivirus, will you agree to be functional again?"
• Depression : You feel numb and have lost hope. The mere sight of the computer makes you want to crawl under your bed and spend a few weeks lying there in complete immobility.
• Acceptance : When the anger, sadness and mourning have tapered off, you simply accept the reality of the loss and start shopping for a new computer.
  

As you might have guessed by now, I have gone through these stages lately when the laptop expired. I had been using this computer for three years to write this blog, my thesis, my lectures, my essays, my emails and many other things when it presented me one afternoon with a blank screen.

I spent a week trying to put my limited knowledge of computer technology to the test, then wasted another pestering about the fact that I had to rely on somebody who knew more than I did – and who would bill me accordingly.

If I must rely on my computer, I should also be able to repair it myself, I thought. But then I would not have sufficient time to write this blog, my thesis, my lectures, my essays, my emails and many other things...

I’m still on stage two about this one.