The Small Inconveniences of Being Alive

It was a gloomy, dark November day when my crew and I drove four hours to my boss's house in Chaumont, France, for a last-minute job.

His house was enormous. There were more rooms than we needed, so instead of renting accommodation for us, he offered us his own place.

We each got our own room. Then he invited us to dinner.

“Anything you want. Order from wherever you like. It's on the company card, so treat yourselves,” he said with a cunning smile, puffing out his chest.

Of course, it wasn't his company paying, so he was relaxed about the money.

We ordered everything we could think of: pizza, McDonald's, sushi, macarons. He turned the dinner into one enormous party. As he used to say, life itself was always meant to be one.

It felt luxurious. None of my bosses had ever treated me like that before.

Around ten, we started getting ready for bed. We asked whether he needed help cleaning up.

"Oh, no. It's gonna take a minute." He looked at us with the expression of a child who knows he's about to show you something impressive.

"Alexa," he shouted a few instructions in French.

Then the house started moving.

The gates closed and locked themselves, the outdoor lights went off, the front door locked, the shutters rolled down.

The dishwasher was already packed, and it would quietly wash everything while we slept. The television was programmed to turn itself off at midnight. If we wanted to keep watching, he could set Alexa up to respond to our voices.

Then he asked us how we liked our morning coffee.

Apparently, Alexa could take care of that too. By six in the morning, our coffee would be waiting for us, steaming in our cups.

It could adjust the thermostat, order groceries and water the garden plants. It turned off the robot vacuum cleaner before they'd arrive back home. They actually had one on every floor, so they wouldn't have to carry the vacuum cleaner upstairs—because that's one thing Alexa can't do.

What an inconvenience.

There wasn't much for them to do around the house. For the things Alexa couldn't do—cleaning the toilets or placing the ordered food in the freezer— they had a maid for.

Alexa took care of almost everything. They simply told it what they wanted, and it was done in seconds.

What's more, Alexa could remind them that they were running low on milk, remind them to renew the monthly bus pass for their children and many more things.

I was amazed.

I had heard of Alexa before, obviously, but I had never seen a house so completely hooked up to one.

Walking toward my room, I remember thinking how futuristic it was. This was the kind of thing you see in movies. But this was real. It was Tuesday night in a French house that looked like any other.

Honestly, it sounded wonderful. Imagine how much time you could save by automating all those tiny tasks you don't want to do. More than an hour a day.

What would I do with that extra time?

I could write more, do longer yoga sessions or finally have time to meditate for longer than five minutes. I could read more before bed and even sleep in every morning.

Maybe this was the future of humanity: a life where machines take care of the boring tasks, so we are free to do the things that matter.

Eventually, I returned to my room.

It belonged to my boss's son, who happened to be in Thailand at the time. The walls were covered with Dragon Ball and Son Goku posters. Or, I should really say wall.

Because there was only one.

The rest of the room was really just three enormous windows overlooking the town and the garden.

Or at least, I assumed there was a view.

I really wanted to see it.

How awesome it must be to have a room with such view? Especially on a clear night with all the stars and constellations visible. The warm yellow lights of the town below. Cars moving in the distance.

So I walked over to the window and tried to open the shutters.

But I couldn't.

Alexa closed them, and there was no obvious way to open them manually.

I tried speaking to Alexa, but it wasn't responding to my commands.

I wasn't even sure if it could hear me from that room. Maybe I needed an app to talk to it. Maybe I should try to give the command in French. Maybe I was simply too stupid to understand how the futuristic house worked.

I stood there in front of the window, staring at my own reflection in the glass. The tiny electric lights inside the room reflected back at me.

I felt locked in, almost claustrophobic.

It was ridiculous. I was standing inside an enormous, luxurious house with a comfortable bed, heating, food, electricity and everything I could possibly need.

And yet I felt like I was sleeping inside a container.

I had the worst sleep of my life.

I couldn't stop thinking about the shutters and how I couldn't open them manually.

Then I thought about all the other things technology does for us.

How great they are, and how they make our lives better and easier. But the same time, how much we lose with them.

I thought about all the sunsets I had witnessed because I had to walk to a window to close the shutters. Some of them were spectacular. The kind of sunset that makes you stop whatever you're doing. The sky turning pink and orange and purple.

The kind you would probably take a photograph of if you had your phone in your hand, but would also probably forget to photograph because you were too busy looking at it.

I thought about the times when I had to water my mother's plants.

It's one of those chores nobody puts on their list of things that make life meaningful. But I notice so many tiny wonders while doing that: the smell of wet soil, a strange little insect crawling on a leaf, sweet scent filling the air, and the flowers you didn't notice the day before.

Once, a toad jumped out of a bush while we were watering it and scared the shit out of everyone.

A robot could water those plants perfectly, as it did in my boss's house. It might even do a better job than we could.

But while a robot would water our plants, we'd miss out on the sweet scents, the strange-looking bugs or the memories we now cherish forever.

I thought about the late-night conversations with friends while we were washing the dishes after a party. Nobody loves washing the dishes, but you still do it.

But you know those moments when the party is technically over, most people went home, and you're standing in the kitchen with your best friends, sleeves rolled up, washing plates and glasses.

That's when some of the most important discussions happen.

Then there's coffee.

Every morning, I could have a machine make it for me. I could wake up later, stumble into the kitchen and find a steaming cup waiting for me, just the way I like it. It sounds fantastic.

And on some busy mornings I would probably love it.

But there is something about making coffee for yourself. Walking into the kitchen half-asleep, putting the kettle to boil, finding your favorite mug, measuring the perfect amount of coffee, the smell of it brewing, and the waiting.

Well, it isn't very efficient.

If a machine can do something faster, automatically and without bothering us, why wouldn't we let it? Why would we choose the slower option?

Why would we walk to the window when a timed motor can roll down the shutters? Why would we wash dishes when a dishwasher can do it? (Okay, it cleans off grease and gluten traces way better than I ever could, you got me there...)

Why would we make coffee when a machine can have it waiting for us? Why would we remember phone numbers when our phones can remember them for us? Why would we navigate by looking at maps when GPS can tell us exactly where to turn?

And I'm not against any of this.

Quite the opposite. I love technology.

I love that I no longer need to carry coins around looking for a pay phone and hoping my mother is somewhere nearby to answer it. I love that I don't have to remember twenty-five phone numbers. GPS is one of my favorite inventions.

Especially as someone who works in the forest. Just imagine...

I like that my smartwatch notices when I've been sitting at my desk writing for too long and tells me to move my ass. Sometimes it even reminds me to breathe and drop my shoulders when I've been stressed.

These things genuinely make my life better.

Technology isn't the villain. Rather, it's how we use it.

The sunset doesn't disappear when we automate the shutters. The garden doesn't become less beautiful because a robot waters it. The coffee doesn't taste worse because a machine made it.

Sometimes the thing we so quickly label as inconvenience is actually an invitation.

An invitation to look up, to notice the sky, to smell the coffee, to touch the soil, to talk to someone, to wander into a conversation that wasn't planned, to get scared by a toad, to be interrupted.

We're really good at removing small inconveniences from our lives, but maybe those small inconveniences are the moments where life really happens.

This, to me, is a strange paradox of technology.

It gives us back time by removing the things that fill it.

I'm not convinced that it's always good.

I don't really want to go back to a world without smartphones, GPS or smart watches.

But I also don't want to wash every dish by hand for the rest of my life, and don't want to be hooked on my phone all day.

And if someone invents a machine that loads the dishes from the stove and the table into the dishwasher perfectly, I will probably be its biggest fan.

I just don't want to automate every tiny inconvenience.

I want to make my coffee. I want to walk to the window. I want to open the shutters myself.

Because sometimes, while doing something completely ordinary, I might accidentally see something extraordinary.

And I don't want to make my life so efficient that I miss it entirely.