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Everything you bring with you that is not part of your soul is always a burden because it comes with a shadow.

We bear some of these shadows knowingly. They become the weight on our shoulders. We feel their weight, and we know what they do.

If I bring matches and a tent with me on a multi-day hike I am not corrupting the journey of my soul because I know where these tools stop and where my soul begins.

If however I bring my laptop with me everyday, I bring something that has an incredibly new and complex kind of shadow.

Some items have obvious shadows. If I bring an AK-47 and a combat knife with me walking downtown, it's a very scary shadow. At least they're obvious though. We know what kind of shadow it is like we know what a tiger or bear is.

The shadow of our more complex pieces of technology are more octopus shaped. They feel alien. They feel powerful, yet inscrutable. Everywhere, yet centrally controlled as if a Benevolent Moloch were hiding in the shadows.

They are shadows precisely because we do not know where they stop and where "we" begin. Their manipulation requires the contortion of our fingers and souls stretched in so many directions that we have no idea if we're losing parts of ourselves.

Sometimes we may get the suspicion that part of us are being analyzed or dissected. Sometime we'll just pass it off as we would a caring doctor asking questions. Sometimes we feel more. Likes pieces of us are being stolen, atom by atom, without our knowing.