Draining Your Brain

David Brook, writing in the New York Times, offers a brilliant article called "The Outsourced Brain," wherein he describes how today's technology is aiding some people in abdicating from everyday decisions, and worse, even from basic thinking.

"The gurus seek bliss amidst mountaintop solitude and serenity in the meditative trance," he writes, "but I, grasshopper, have achieved the oneness with the universe that is known as pure externalization.

"I have melded my mind with the heavens, communed with the universal consciousness, and experienced the inner calm that externalization brings, and it all started because I bought a car with a G.P.S."

"Like many men, I quickly established a romantic attachment to my G.P.S. I found comfort in her tranquil and slightly Anglophilic voice. I felt warm and safe following her thin blue line. More than once I experienced her mercy, for each of my transgressions would be greeted by nothing worse than a gentle, Make a U-turn if possible.”

"After a few weeks, it occurred to me that I could no longer get anywhere without her. Any trip slightly out of the ordinary had me typing the address into her system and then blissfully following her satellite-fed commands. I found that I was quickly shedding all vestiges of geographic knowledge."