The iPad’s Power To Enhance The Meaning of Wine
Anyone who uses an iPad for even a short time must immediately recognize that it is a game changer. What kind of game changer? I see the kind of change that we saw with the emergence of email: a fundamental shift in the way we do required tasks.
For example, it's absolutely clear that tablet computing will render the use of pulp based books obsolete in all but very few situations in the same way email has rendered hand written or even typewritten letters something of a specialized action.
There appear numerous other ways this midsized computing implement will change the game. But after using my new iPad 2 for just a couple days, my interaction with this new tool has impressed upon me something I didn't immediately expect to consider as a result:
The impressive impact the iPad has on how various tasks are carried our in a virtual way reminds me that wine will continue to and increasingly become that critical item that connects its users to the Elemental; an object that provides us with the important reminder we are products of the earth; a symbol of simple reality.
A number of shifts in how we operate and organize community has already bestowed this symbolizing effect on other activities. For example, the rise of the corporate farming as the dominant activity in putting food on our plates has turned the small family farm into a charming throwbacks that symbolizes the past and man's elemental connection to the earth.
It strikes me that as we move more rapidly forward into more "virtual" activities that prior were face to face or more physical activities, greater symbolic importance will be place on actions and items that represent what we were, how we worked, and the way in which we lived.
Karen MacNeil recently pointed to how wine plays this role when she blogged on the subject of "Why Wine Matters" writing, "Wine matters because of this connection. Wine (and food) cradle us in our own humanity. Drinking wine–small as that action may seem–is an affirmation. It reminds us of other things that matter: love, friendship, generosity."
I see it in a similar way to Karen, but slightly different. While wine can remind us of "love, friendship, generosity", I believe its more substantial contribution to our psyche is the way it reminds us that no matter how far we move toward a world of "virtual" interaction and cloud-based work, we are even more powerfully influenced as living beings when we interact with our physical nature, a nature that is bound by simple, elemental, chemical reactions that occur when we nestle ourselves up to other physical items that require a start in the earth and have the power to remind us that we are of this earth.
No matter how much I stand back and consider the amazing capability of my iPad and notice the way it changes my life, it has no power to get me tipsy, no power to let me physically re-experience the summer of 2000, no power to put me in direct touch with the transformative power of simple photosynthesis.
Objects and items that have these powers and that seem to be "crafted" rather than manufactured will, I believe, become even more important to our lives and well-being as technology continues to advance to a place where virtual appears real.
I need to admit you’ve just gave us a great insight. Really.
There are two things I want to point out:
– tables category is a feature/tool which can help wine lovers/writers/critics to improve and managing information in terms of being updated, taking notes, etc. This is a real advantage of mobile technologies nowadays.
– “wine world” should me careful when matching fancy and trendy tools in their communication. Everyone should remember that first thing is idea, problem solution, that you can pick right technology.
Yes, you’re right! iPad will never be good substitute for real life experiences;)
Tom,
Your sentiments are right on–as long as humans meet the future challenge to our self-awareness as a species.
Technology is a direct threat to that awareness, a fact that can be witnessed by measuring the level of empathy humans are capable of owning and expressing.
I fully agree with Tom. No technological advance, current or future, is going to give us the feeling of- borrowing from Karen McNeil- the things that matter to us most- love and friendship and, yes, generosity, too. It’s just the way we, humans, are made. We are organisms, not mechanisms that the makers of all those brilliant electronic devices would like to see us. No iWine, however well developed, is ever going to give us the pleasure that comes with a sip of the real thing. Use iPad according to its purpose – as a pad for your wine glass.
Nice article, thanks for the information.
Tom,
Well said! I could not agree more, sometimes the more we “move forward” we need to take a step back and slow down. A glass of wine with a humble meal does just that, makes us slow down, and have a conversation during our meal instead of quickly devouring our food only to move on to the next task. Great post as always. Thank you.
We must find time for everything…, to enjoy a good glass of wine, good company and at the same time taking advantage of the extensive benefits that technology offers.
Read this post on our iPad with a drink in hand is great.
Thank you very much.
The Wine Colours
Really like how you have pinpointed for the wine lover that you can use technology to enhance not only your knowledge about wine, but you can also connect to the places, the people, and the networks that infuse this knowledge. See what I did there? I said, “infuse.”
Thanks for this blog, really enjoying reading it
Technology is great but there are plenty of things in life it will never replaced by it. Especially wine.