For most of my life I owned very little. Until I was 30 I was a vagabond. I wandered remote parts of Asia in cheap sneakers and worn jeans. The cities I knew best brimmed in medieval richness; the lands were green in agricultural outlook. When I reached for something in those days it was almost surely made of wood, fiber or stone. I ate with my hands, trekked on foot through mountain valleys, and slept wherever. I carried very little money and even less stuff. My personal possessions totaled up to a sleeping bag and some cameras. I fully embrace the transforming power of technology. Yet our family of five still doesn't have TV. I don't have a pager, or PDA, or cam-phone. I find a spiritual strength in keeping technology at arm's length. At the same time I run a daily website called Cool Tools where I review a broad range of highly selected consumer technology. These obvious contradictions have prompted me to investigate my own paradoxical relationship with technology. How should I think about new technology when it comes along? It's a question at the heart of many other questions that baffle us these days. I am not the only one perplexed about the true nature of the increasing presence of technology in our culture. The best way I know to think about things is to write about them, and so in order to force me to go beyond the obvious I am writing a book about what technology means. The Technium, by Kevin Kelly | 
