Life is Like a Computer

Have you ever considered that life is like a computer? Sounds too simple, right? If that is so, how do you define life?

I do believe that life is the art of drawing conclusions from insufficient premises. There are no short courses or survival course of any kind. Have you ever come across a book entitled Life Made Easy? There is none. It is because we are always asked to deal with what is most difficult, important, and crucial. In life, we are always confronted by simplistic questions answerable only by “yes” or “no.” Just like using that box Bill Gates popularized – the computer.

Years ago, my memory was so overloaded with viruses. The only recourse I thought was a complete reformatting. After spending so much time scrolling documents, selecting scores of them, deleting them, the dialogue box said, “There are no items to show in this view.” The computer knows how to dare and confront us by a simplistic, yet loaded question when we do that: “Are you sure you want to delete the selected items?” For a moment, I was shocked. I hesitated. There I was, seated right in front of the computer being challenged by a simple multiple choice: Yes or No?

Again, when we are confronted by two conflicting interests, we have to choose in favor of one. Without blinking an eye, I pressed “Yes,” thus letting go off those pent-up steam and having realized that the power to forget is a necessary condition for our existence and survival. Then, I entered into a new space and a new window.

Life is like that, like a computer. We close a file (our unpleasant memories), reopen our saved documents (our fond memories), hoping that no virus (bad experiences) would infect our new file (our new life). As we close a new document that we have created for the day, another window opens the following morning to be filled with new inputs, not by design, but by choice. And when we have completed our draft, we read it, scroll, and perhaps deleting some parts. And then, we heave a sigh of relief because we encountered no technical problem at the end of the day. But if we fail, it doesn’t mean that we are poor players and, above all, we are not idiots because we recognize that life is full of rhythm. It is a precious gift that defines the purpose of our existence. That is, only if we have the courage to delete unnecessary documents. Only if we know how to select what we input, what to save, how to be bold in opening a new window; a new file, which is life itself. For life is a huge canvas where only us can capture the seasons of our own lives.