I finally have a new word to help explain the emotional impact of what happens when my various cybernetic prostheses stop working: an e-stroke. Say it with me.

I have about the usual amount of trouble syncing my calendar and contacts data between my computer and my Palm Pilot, which is to say, way, way too much, where “too much” would be once every few years at most. Honestly, it should never happen, ever. Does that sound unreasonable? It isn’t. If you need convincing, read The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin to get your priorities straight.

I depend on my Pilot and a couple of other devices daily, and I depend on them to be at least as good as pen and paper, which means this: if I write it down, and then later retrieve the paper, I should be able to read what I put there. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Not too deranged? I write it, store it; later I get to read it. Shouldn’t I? Sure I should.

When this simple operation fails, it usually sends me into an emotional maelstrom, a recipe made up of regret, bitterness, rage, and confusion, while I find myself temporarily devoting most of my energy and effort into debugging and fixing the data snarl. Why so upset? Because I’m dependent on this cloud of data and devices; being suddenly without it is like having a stroke. An e-stroke, in this case.

Stifle your laughter and taunts, you Luddites. A return to simple paper and and pen will no longer solve my modern problems. Paper and pen aren’t up to what I demand from my Palm and Mac, which includes audible alarms, searching, sorting, repeating events, attached notes, cross-referencing and indexing, encryption and password security, network backups, email and web integration, and more. And sure, my own brain is capable of these operations, but not with the scale and reliability of the machines. The fact is that I’m dependent on them because they’re good enough to depend upon…almost.

When something goes wrong with your brain, it’s upsetting, isn’t it? Even if this hasn’t happened to you yet (and I hope it has not), I’m sure you can imagine it. What makes it upsetting, even if temporary, is that you find yourself without a capacity which you have come to count on and build into your sense of self. When your cybernetic brain fails you, you’re having an e-stroke. Get emergency help and give yourself some time to recover.

I’ll finish up with excerpt from the poem I Had No Idea It Was So Late by Ogden Nash, dating back to the 1930s, about one of the first such external brains: a watch.

…And there is nothing more surly
Than a watchless man who doesn’t know if he is late or early,
And clocks are no good to him because he can’t take them along,
And anyhow a clock is only something that you compare with your watch and find the clock is several minutes wrong.
If there is one thing that every man thinks how sublime it is,
It is to know what time it is.