Once spent a year living in a mountain community with no electricity...the quality of light you describe so well completely resonates. In particular I remember the sense that people's countenance were like Van Gogh portraits....so full of life and depth.
One other thing was how altered was my daily routine , being so dominated by the rising and setting of the sun despite oil lanterns...
When I moved into my apartment on the Upper West Side, the lights were on, so it didn't occur to me that I'd have to call Con Ed and set myself up. A week later I came home and they were off. Problem was, now a holiday weekend, then a two-day Jewish holiday got in the way of the Con Ed guys getting into the basement to set me up because you could only get into the basement through the kosher pizza place on the ground floor. Thus for more than a week I lived by candlelight. I got so used to it, in fact, that when my brother came to see my new apartment, he wondered why I was living in the dark and I didn't know what he'd meant, I'd gotten so used so used to it. It was lovely.
Years later, I've lost power several times in NJ due to storms and other grid problems. Now I have flashlights, but it's not the same.
This sums up the gains and losses of progress. A technology (what was gained), when robust, will remain. The experience (memory) of the world prior to the technology will be lost. For instance, we don't know what the world must have smelled like before plumbing, detergent and deodorant. While those technologies abide, our sense of the world without them does not. I have heard that astronauts on long stays in space return to earth and are struck by the stench. They had forgotten what unfiltered air, an atmosphere filled with the gasses released by living organisms and decaying biomatter, smelled like. They were, in a sense, experiencing something they had forgotten. What experiences will we lose in the post-internet, post-smartphone world? What it was like to navigate a city in a foreign country with nothing but what you could see and a map book. Of having to find change to feed into a payphone to call someone. To function in those days took patience and attention to the immediate surroundings. It took a keen eye for resources and opportunities. These faculties may well be lost to the general population over time.
I've had numerous conversations on this theme with my 21 yr old granddaughter. She uses social media and the internet in much healthier ways than her mother's (or certainly my) generation because she's never known a world without it and had to learn how to negotiate it as just one more part of the complexity of the world. She suspects that her children will have an easier time of it than she has. Is what they lose in the process outweighed by what they gain? Or is that the wrong question altogether?
Nick--a very compelling post. No question the flame has a primordial pull on humans. Architects and interior designers obsess over lighting and for good reason. Candlelight lands between 1500 and 1900K (Kelvin) At that temperature the warm end of the visible spectrum is strongly enhanced. Ordinarily other light sources are at play as well, fulfilling the old painter's adage, warm light/cool shadows. But as a bonus, if there are no other light sources and although the contrast may stay the same, any "cool" that might inhabit the shadows is greatly diminished. The result is a light that is flattering in the extreme to human skin. It's why pink light bulbs in the boudoir are considered a marital aid and accounts for why Red Light Districts are lit as they are. Compare that to the cadaverish light cast by the higher color temperature light sources.
It is important to note the profound impact early forms of lighting had on hours available to do all manner of work and production. The ability to carry out settled work, particularly in the dark winter months of Northern Europe. The Industrial Enlightenment was generating a torrent of scientific and technological discovery. Experiments, calculations, research and correspondence made those extra hours
invaluable to both practitioners and theoreticians.
The losses you point to are counterbalanced by the ability to socialize and gather well into the evening.
Once spent a year living in a mountain community with no electricity...the quality of light you describe so well completely resonates. In particular I remember the sense that people's countenance were like Van Gogh portraits....so full of life and depth.
One other thing was how altered was my daily routine , being so dominated by the rising and setting of the sun despite oil lanterns...
When I moved into my apartment on the Upper West Side, the lights were on, so it didn't occur to me that I'd have to call Con Ed and set myself up. A week later I came home and they were off. Problem was, now a holiday weekend, then a two-day Jewish holiday got in the way of the Con Ed guys getting into the basement to set me up because you could only get into the basement through the kosher pizza place on the ground floor. Thus for more than a week I lived by candlelight. I got so used to it, in fact, that when my brother came to see my new apartment, he wondered why I was living in the dark and I didn't know what he'd meant, I'd gotten so used so used to it. It was lovely.
Years later, I've lost power several times in NJ due to storms and other grid problems. Now I have flashlights, but it's not the same.
This sums up the gains and losses of progress. A technology (what was gained), when robust, will remain. The experience (memory) of the world prior to the technology will be lost. For instance, we don't know what the world must have smelled like before plumbing, detergent and deodorant. While those technologies abide, our sense of the world without them does not. I have heard that astronauts on long stays in space return to earth and are struck by the stench. They had forgotten what unfiltered air, an atmosphere filled with the gasses released by living organisms and decaying biomatter, smelled like. They were, in a sense, experiencing something they had forgotten. What experiences will we lose in the post-internet, post-smartphone world? What it was like to navigate a city in a foreign country with nothing but what you could see and a map book. Of having to find change to feed into a payphone to call someone. To function in those days took patience and attention to the immediate surroundings. It took a keen eye for resources and opportunities. These faculties may well be lost to the general population over time.
I've had numerous conversations on this theme with my 21 yr old granddaughter. She uses social media and the internet in much healthier ways than her mother's (or certainly my) generation because she's never known a world without it and had to learn how to negotiate it as just one more part of the complexity of the world. She suspects that her children will have an easier time of it than she has. Is what they lose in the process outweighed by what they gain? Or is that the wrong question altogether?
Good questions!
Nick--a very compelling post. No question the flame has a primordial pull on humans. Architects and interior designers obsess over lighting and for good reason. Candlelight lands between 1500 and 1900K (Kelvin) At that temperature the warm end of the visible spectrum is strongly enhanced. Ordinarily other light sources are at play as well, fulfilling the old painter's adage, warm light/cool shadows. But as a bonus, if there are no other light sources and although the contrast may stay the same, any "cool" that might inhabit the shadows is greatly diminished. The result is a light that is flattering in the extreme to human skin. It's why pink light bulbs in the boudoir are considered a marital aid and accounts for why Red Light Districts are lit as they are. Compare that to the cadaverish light cast by the higher color temperature light sources.
It is important to note the profound impact early forms of lighting had on hours available to do all manner of work and production. The ability to carry out settled work, particularly in the dark winter months of Northern Europe. The Industrial Enlightenment was generating a torrent of scientific and technological discovery. Experiments, calculations, research and correspondence made those extra hours
invaluable to both practitioners and theoreticians.
The losses you point to are counterbalanced by the ability to socialize and gather well into the evening.