Screensaver

I’ve had my laptop for some 10 years or so and only yesterday got this thought:

“Hmm. Maybe I should use one of my photos instead of the generic screensaver.”

And so I did, as follows:

This a photo from the island of Lipari off of Sicily. I don’t know why it makes me so happy, but it does. First off, water is always soothing to the soul. Then there’s the boats going out or coming in, affirming the sense of journey that always excites our wandering spirits. The red tiled house to the right a nice blend of the human world with the natural one, the buildings in the distance a little urban energy, the circular frames of the rock, the feeling of summer in the air (I was there in July), the blooming plant in the stone-wall outcropping—it all combines to lift me up and make me smile every time I open my computer.

Of course, this could be dangerous, making me yet more interested in opening my computer instead of taking a walk in places like these! But hopefully I’ll remember what’s missing here—smells, fresh air, bird songs, me walking and moving my muscles, people passing on the path. You know, the real deal.

But meanwhile, since I live the contemporary life of gathering various threads of my life on a single desktop, might as well use a photo that makes me happy. Also kind of cool to place the various folders in different places instead of just hovering abstractly in the old blue background. Now I can put files on top of the stone wall or on the house's rooftop or out there in the middle of the water. Fun!

And so this little ode to the small pleasures of our electronically mediated lives.