The time has come. I have to upgrade my computer.
I love my iMac, and so do all the friends who, over the years, have come to coo over its white lines, its smooth, minimalist presence in my room a kind of elegance rather than functionality, with the knowledge that it does stuff just adding to its attraction.
And it’s still going strong. After six years of hard use, it is still as pristine and bug free as ever.
So why upgrade?
The main reason is because I want to get voice recognition software so I don’t have to type as much. The reason I haven’t blogged these last few weeks is because I have developed rather painful shoulders from too much desk work. I am nowadays using a fitball and a height adjusted desk, but the idea of typing less is still very attractive to both me and my physiotherapist.
My current Mac does not support the latest voice software. I have to either upgrade to a new Mac, or PC.
Herein is the rub. The PCs are functional. They are well specced, they are cheaper.
The Mac is prettier.
I don’t want to be this person. I don’t want Steve Jobs to define what my creativity looks like. Helen Garner once said that a pen or paper fetish just means you are procrastinating as a writer. I don’t like to think of Helen Garner, shaking her head at me. It makes me uncomfortable.
Maybe it would be good for me to just buck up and use a PC. It does exactly what the Mac does – probably does it better as the word and voice software products were originally PC products, adapted to Macs.
But what about my identity?
Finally, after a week of agonising about it, I think I am ready to surrender. Steve Jobs has won the identity wars. I am an Apple user. My book would be grumpier if I bought a PC. Stroppy for having to stare at that revolting Windows operating system and those distressingly unpleasing black, rigid lines and that bulky, Mac-tryhard screen for hours on end. My writing would suffer. My self-respect would suffer for longer than it will have to for giving in and buying a computer because it makes me feel part of the creative cool kids club.
My only hesitation: the new, quad core 27 inch iMac doesn’t come in white. Perhaps my book will take on a more sophisticated sheen as a result of my future computer’s silvery frame. The moon will whisper rather than shine; the child will quiz rather than question. And I will humbly type, or talk into my beautiful machine, and try to kid myself no more that I am above such pettiness.