The Question Concerning Technology

I got half way through this article and still had no idea what I was reading, so I went back to page one and started over. This time I noticed something helpful in footnote 1. But first, the goal introduced is to discover the way as a way of thinking in regard to questioning concerning technology but not merely technology, the ESSENCE of technology. Okay so what's that mean? Well, the footnote explains essence and the "way" a little more clearly than the actual text. The essence of something is what it is, and it is also "the way in which something pursues its course; the way in which it remains through time as what it is". So we want to know what technology is, and that means understanding its course. The history of technology is important to our discovery as well as the way in which it has advanced. But more so than these aspects, I think Heidegger wants us to understand the interconnectedness with and effect among humanity. When technology "pursues" its course", what does that mean to us? Are we controlling the course? Is the control in the hands of a few? Or is technology completely out of control? Later, in the article Heidegger talks about the lumber jack and his connection with media and communication and therefore technology. It reminded me of Buddhism thought and the interconnectedness of all things. It is likely to be an unconscious contribution, as seen in the case of the lumber jack, but it exists. Can we trace everything we do back to the course of technology? If technology is man made which it is, we must be able too, but the connections are subtle and hard to find sometimes and even when found sometimes very difficult to interpret. So let's say we can trace the essence of technology, the question of control still comes up. Technology is man-made...well, is it? Or was it? Is it now out of our hands? I think not. Even if technology is becoming its own master, the contributions of mankind is inevitable and will be so long as we find technology useful to us. Unfolding the essence of technology is quite different from unfolding the essence of Tree though both are insightful wanderings that can leave the head buzzing. Technology is different that Tree, because it is constantly changing and advancing and transforming. A tree is a tree just like it was a thousand years ago, but technology is frightful different than it was a thousand years ago. The variations and transformations found in the tree are more simplistic than those of technology. We are absorbed in technology and its boundaries are very difficult to identify unlike a tree. Even so, the interconnectedness of even the tree with technology reveals that although seemeingly different, trees effect technology and technology certainly effects trees.