The Abacus – Low Tech Savior for Hi Tech Lives

Instant Disney classic Wall-E deserves a spot on the media-shelf next to 1984 and Brave New World. Besides the chilling look we get at our world after the eco-apocalypse, Wall-E humorously fleshes out the future of wired mankind, and we do mean flesh. Helpless blobs, the humans are less human than their robot attendants. The lesson – we are slaves to our servants.

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We don’t have hover-chairs yet, but we do have the same philosophy as Wall-E‘s bloated masters: convenience is king. Anyone reading has probably emailed, or is capable of emailing, a colleague at the other end of the office rather than walking over for audio-visual interface. Everyone’s aware of the price we pay for this convenience in added girth and lowered energy. The mental atrophy, however, is not so readily reversed.

The enlightened are trading in their autos for bicycles. China Expat humbly suggests you pitch your calculator and replace it with an abacus. It’s not just about having a nifty desk ornament and a cross-cultural conversation piece, although the Chinese have been data processing with the abacus since Beijing was a camel-trading post on the edge of the Gobi. And it only takes minutes to learn; we’ve even saved you the precious seconds it takes to find free instruction.

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With a few months’ use, there’s no reason you can’t approach the calculating speed of this pair of nimble hands.

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But there are great rewards for regularly using an abacus, not just clacking revenge on co-workers with annoying ringtones. The harmonious interaction of hand, eye, and brain sends an invigorating jolt to the right hemisphere of your brain. Mingled with left-brain number processing, abacus sessions provide a holistic neural massage, re-opening millions of pathways since closed down to make space for the information superhighway.

With regular sessions, you’ll have the memory of someone who’s never heard of Google, recalling everything from what you had for dinner two nights ago to your second-grade teacher’s first name. Long-term cross-brain cooperation can take you to whole new levels of cognitive function. Once you have that abacus in your head, you’re capable of mental feats that would make Rain Man jealous. There’s already an educational system making good use of it (beware the chirpy audio):

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Unsurprisingly, the abacus is an indispensable tool with which to ensure your child avoids high-school remedial algebra, and to increase her chances of early admission to Cal Tech. Educational experts avow that early abacus training stimulates the young neocortex. Because children are working with the numbers through touch, sight, and symbolism, they get an early boost in problem-solving skills, spatial memory, and concentration.

Start using an abacus, and you’ll get a better-late-than-never boost in the same areas. Get that abacus in your head, and no more awkward five-minute pauses as you mumble over the restaurant bill. Soon you’ll be effortlessly figuring how much money and time you waste per month taking taxis at rush hour instead of walking. Friends will compliment you and die a little inside, as you mentally tabulate the depreciation of their 401K portfolios.

Best of all, you’ll have empowered yourself with a device, rather than enslaved yourself to one. Now if you could just stop breaking into a cold sweat when you can’t find your mobile.

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