95 percent of my time at work is spent looking at a computer screen and then, when I come home, my main medium for communicating with my dispersed group of friends is, yes you’ve guessed it, the internet. Increasingly, our lives are being wrapped up 1s and 0s while we slump, stationary, in chairs supposedly designed to be ergonomic (hmm, I feel a poem brewing from that sentence). Indeed, if a talk I listened to a few weeks ago is correct, 85 percent of jobs now require some degree of computer literacy (although I can’t remember if that’s jobs or skilled jobs).

After spending those 7 plus hours staring at an LCD screen, tapping my keyboard and clicking my mouse buttons, I’m about ready to burst with the energy that has been building up in me thanks to enforced sedentism. It’s really no wonder that when it’s home time, I’m relieved to be able to take my walk home. I think part of my need to exercise most days is because I need to do something physical to remind me that there’s more to life than binary.

I guess the thing is that you don’t really get a tangible output from computers in the same way that a crafter would get from something they have made. For me, at least, it makes me question whether what I do is really worthwhile and helpful because I can’t look at my work and go “yes, I can see this physical thing I have created with my time and effort.” At least, when I exercise, I can see and feel the difference that my time and energy have created.

The funny thing is that I thought I was a bit odd for feeling this way but, having talked to some of my friends, they feel the same way. My friend, Emma, keeps a flock of Cotswold sheep and it’s the act of being a shepherd (and the long lineage and sense of history that craft has) that makes her happy. My friend, Martin, goes to a Medieval Martial Arts club, presumably because of the same reason I feel that I have to go to the gym/to exercise classes/running.

Since I started working, I’ve developed a couple of twitches I didn’t have before – I twitch my feet when I’m sitting down, or I tap my middle finger and thumb together or twirl pens between my fingers; basically I’m restless and desperately wanting to DO something. I truly admire my friend, Andy, for studying to become a blacksmith because he is CREATING beautiful, useful, tangible things that have a presence in the ‘real’ world (as opposed to the purely binary world that my work exists in).

The Age of Silicon is the era of faith in 0s and 1s, a time where the intangible has power and influence. The thing is, I’m not sure if I’m really cut out for a world where four of my five senses are relegated to second-class.