Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.
– Madeleine L’Engle
A shadow has been cast over our world. That doesn’t mean that the light isn’t still there – it’s just a bit harder to see right now. And appreciation is often needed for the light to keep shining.
I’m sure I don’t need to explain what the shadow is, but what I am going to explain, or rather appreciate, is one of the many sources of light that are helping to get rid of the darkness.
The ‘Black Death.’ The Spanish flu. In numbers, the damage is measurable. But the form of damage, essentially, is not. You can count deaths, but they count for much more. The world stopped, along with life as people knew it. One main difference is present with COVID-19. If you can read this very article, then you know that our world is still running.
Communication never stopped. Education never stopped. Our economy never stopped. But why?
The answer is in the pixels on your screen, within the framework of your phone, and in the programming of our apps. Technology has become the wheels of our world, and the reason why we’re still rolling.
Technology is helping us socialize and stay informed of current events. Technology is helping us continue educating youth. Technology is helping us purchase goods and use services.
Technology’s benefits continue beyond these, and I don’t need to list all of the ways it positively impacts our lives. It doesn’t matter whether it is maintaining relationships or building a better future by educating our children. The people behind the digital revolution deserve to be appreciated.
In addition to providing an avenue from our homes to the outside world, technology is helping us fight the reason why we are inside in the first place. Advanced equipment, testing, treatment, tracing, monitoring, and measuring data are just some of the elements that make technology an amazing ‘sixth player’ in our combat against our shadow.
We can often take things for granted. But light shines brightest in the dark. And if it took a global pandemic for us to appreciate health care workers, technology developers, and all other sources of light, then that’s okay. It only means that we are going to get through this. Because as Martin Luther King Jr. said, darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that.