Olympiás vs. Myrtis

For everyone who didn't notice me freaking out on Google+ or Twitter exactly two weeks ago, the motherboard on my laptop died. The computer was just out of warranty and several years old, so fixing it would not have been cost-effective in the long run given the advancement of computer technology. Motherboards are freakishly expensive.

Anyway.

I ordered a new laptop because, as a future First World Professional with First World Problems, I need it. The labs at my university don't have some of the specialized software I need to do my homework and my desktop from 2003 has hardware so out-of-date that it spazzes out like a spider with vertigo when I open more than 2 Firefox or 3 Chrome tabs. It doesn't meet the minimum memory requirement for workflow software.

Right now, I have a habit of naming my devices after ancient women writers, preferably Greek ones. It's just a thing.

I'm deciding between Olympiás and Myrtis. Olympiás (from Thebes) wrote women's health texts in the 1st century BCE, which might be lucky for a laptop name because I am planning on science librarianship as a profession. However, I also write poetry, and naming the new laptop after Myrtis may be good because people in antiquity grouped her with the nine female poets. She allegedly taught Pindar. Both of these names have a good feel about them, and I am not sure how to decide between them.

This may not seem religiously significant, but it is for me, and I'm not sure that I realized how much until shortly before my laptop died. My Monday night class had technical issues that week, so we adjourned early and I went to the pagan group meeting at Syracuse University because in-person contact with pagans or polytheists of any stripe has been sorely lacking in my life for the past two years. (You might remember Syracuse's pagan group. They have the first pagan chaplain or something like that.) I learned two things: (1) pagan still == Wiccan in the non-digital community and (2) undergrads are so young. They started talking about technology and the possibility of being filmed by a student doing a project. Someone said, "Are you sure a video camera would even still work in circle?"

-___-

I have used just about every kind of technology imaginable in a ritual. Kindles are amazing. You can read hymns and they won't blow away. Digital music players are really good for establishing moods, and I often keep mine on my person. Even the Evangelical Christians have realized how powerfully technology can support and maintain ecstatic moods in their church attendees. However, the use of technology has to be focused and intentional.

But what if it is just being filmed by an outsider? Images have gone up all over the Internet of many different worship practices without the devices malfunctioning. In fact, the transmission of images provides a clear snapshot of what happened and connects people beyond the ritual practitioners to the beauty of practice. For mysteries, yes, this could be a bad thing, but most things just aren't that intense.

Religion creeps into other things I do with technology. Whether it's doing Hello Hermes instead of Hello World (the traditional first program one writes in a language just prints the statement "hello world" in the terminal or command line prompt, so I just make it print the first few lines of Homeric Hymn #4 or any other prayer), using digital puzzles as a way of contemplating agalmata, or practicing coin divination using the Random Coin Flipper, I have found ways to integrate little actions into my daily life.

Similarly, using the names of ancient women writers is a way of honoring them. Every time I open a command prompt, connect a peripheral device, or what have you, I am reminded of the contributions they made and the impermanence of my own intellectual products.