Quick and easy isn’t necessarily better

Jogging every morning has allowed me to become intimately familiar with my neighbors’ sprinkler systems.

I feel sorry for my neighbors. While they sit at work, comfortable that their yards are being watered, I am dodging clogged pop-up sprinklers or impulse sprinklers that are stuck watering the sidewalk.

Sprinkler systems are symptomatic of a lot of things going on in our culture, but mostly they represent our tendency to pursue convenience to absurd extremes.

Instead of taking a moment to move a $20 hose and sprinkler, we spend hundreds of dollars installing automatic systems that water the yard during rainstorms, or even the sidewalk.

Such is life in these United States. What we love more than gadgets is convenience. We love convenience so much that we sometimes become overwrought in our pursuit of it, sacrificing other, more important qualities.

Convenience becomes an end, not a means to an end.

I suggest the minor heresy that some things are better done the old-fashioned way, using the time-consuming, labor-intensive methods of our parents and grandparents.

No, we should not ride in horse-drawn buggies, pound our clothes against rocks or grind corn into flour on millstones. But likewise, we should not compose and print, say, a grocery list, using a $3,000 computer, when a pencil and a piece of paper work just fine.

This mad pursuit of convenience is not only stupid but leads to unforgiveable waste; of time, money, resources, intellect and imagination.

Consider, for instance, what happens around the household after a burp in the electrical grid causes the power to go off momentarily. Don’t you spend the next 10 minutes resetting digital clocks?

Worse are the sacrifices conveniences extract from the mind.

Once children were allowed to bring calculators into classrooms, knowledge about mathematics walked out the door. The study of numbers is a discipline of the intellect, requiring a grasp of abstractions and principles that transcends mere button-pushing.

Any fool can be taught to mash a 3 key, a PLUS key, a 5 key, and then an EQUAL key. But take away the calculator and ask the same question. See what the fool tells you.

At its worst, our mania for convenience teaches us that everything we do must be quick and easy.

Cooking, for instance, becomes a matter of microwaving, or eating out. Communicating is little more than bashing out a fragment and pressing the SEND key. “Love” is a latchkey relationship, existing only for so long as the ride goes smoothly.

Convenience rob an experience of pride, of thought, and finally, of meaning. Can a loaf of bread shipped up from a machine compare to the loaf you spent hours kneading with your flour-spotted hands? Is a hasty e-mail comparable to the letter your best friend wrote in her elegant cursives? Is a relationship without challenges really a relationship?

Some things require time, and effort, and thought.

So get out in your yard and drag hoses. It’s a hassle, but when you’re done, you’ll know the yard was watered.

And the job was done right.

This column was originally published in the Wednesday, June 10, 1998 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and was used with permission.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .