Measure twice, cut once

Technology:
Our salvation, our bane;
Our servant, our master.
Our muses, and Aergia
Apollonic, Athenic;
Dyonysian, Priapian both:
A modern Janus is technology.


Gadgets and programs,
Hardware and software,
Inherent and learned knowledge,
Conspire at every turn
Against the unsuspecting:
Closed the gates to the unbaptized.


How can we translate the world
Into a computer; rationalize
Motes of sunlight and greenery
Into lines and boxes on a screen;
On paper? Points-of-interest marked
As Xs against space...
Making sense only to initiated eyes.


GPS gadgetry mixed with opensource software,
Information-age technologies mixed,
In a cauldron of invention; intention;
And will out -- one can hope -- a tincture of truth;
Lines on space, signifying knowledge,
Skirting anguish and frustration
Through plastic clicks at laser speed.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
It's lost. Gone without a trace:
Sequences of ons and offs;
Arcane numismatics, that
In context
Can pay the gatekeeper to enlightenment;
But are now just lost to the ether.

I must again cover the same ground,
Click the same plastic laser clicks,
Collect the same sequences of ons and off,
Attempting to bribe enlightenment's keeper:
Sisyphus or Tantalus? I don't know which I am,
But repeated action appears to be my task.

Shit.