JUST as I was about to start writing this article, my computer crashed out. The repair person reported that all my data have been corrupted.

At least, repair and maintenance are still prompt and efficient in the private sector, for a fee. The same cannot be said of the public sector. The potholes on the roads in my neighbourhood have been terrorising motorists for month; they will remain so until the end of the world I think.

I refused to have my weekly column so rudely interrupted by the failure of my writing machine. Like a good old-timer, I took out pen and paper, and begin the task of taking revenge on the computer, and on all tools.

The computer is just another tool, though it is touted by business and government as the most important of all tools, without which the human race will regress to the stone age. Whatever wonders are conferred upon the computer, at the end of the day, it is just another silly machine, made from all kinds of metals, synthetic materials, and a dizzying array of wires. Like all machines which are made by man, and therefore imperfect, the computer must break down once in a while, from the usual wear-and-tear, manufacturer's defects, or sheer abuse by users like me.

As long as the machine is working and humming away harmoniously, we do not even give any second thought to its presence. It is so ready-to-hand, so fused to our being that it feels like an extension of our body and mind.

However, in that one instant when the machine breaks down, the imperceptible bond between man and tool is abruptly torn asunder. Like a derailed train, man the maker and user of tools is rendered completely helpless. In amazement and puzzlement, he lifts his head from his immersion in the task at hand, and surveys the world around him with new eyes.

There it is, the tool that has been part of his being, very much like his hands and feet, now lies lifeless like a piece of junk, standing in the way of man's will to power and to life! For those addicted to the Internet, the breakdown of the computer could mean total annihilation of the meaning of life, isolation from the universe, and a cosmic loneliness worse than death itself.

Wonders for self renewal

Nothing is more deadening than the routine of daily living. Performing your familiar tasks almost without thinking, you get carried away in the river of existence, with your nose under the water. A breakdown, any breakdown, will do wonders for self renewal. A death in the family, bankruptcy, a personal tragedy, or the discovery of a terminal disease, will all set the numb mind ablaze with fear and bewilderment. A breakdown in the machine we use also serve the same purpose.

And so, thanks to my computer's temporary demise, I began to reflect upon this relationship between man and his tools.

You look around the house, and home-sweet-home is nothing but an orderly assembly of tools - tools for sleeping and sitting, tools for cooking, washing and storage, tools for your basic bodily functions, tools for entertainment, tools for communication with the outside world, and tools to keep intruders out.

Parked outside the house on the driveway, is the most important and probably the most troublesome of all tools for city living - the car. Why, the very house we live in is a composite tool, a man-made shelter to protect us from the ravages of our unpredictable tropical elements, and a locus of our personal happiness. Step outside the house, and you step into the universe of public tools - tools for public transport, drainage and sewerage, tools for commerce and industry, and tools for maintaining law and order. Human settlements of all sizes and shapes are nothing but very ingenious to all complexes erected by the concerted effort of many men to ensure their better chance of survival. Take away these tools, we do indeed revert back to the savagery of the caveman.

A few decades ago, anthropologists defined Homo Sapiens as that animal species that could invent, make and use tools, starting from the time when primitive men made arrowheads and cutting edges out of splitting stones by knocking them against one another. No other species seemed capable of this monumental feat.

Later on, this definition was thrown into confusion when Jane Goodall discovered that Chimps too, could use little twigs to dig ants out of their hiding places. Be that as it may, it would probably take a few more million years for chimps to invent something like the computer, if ever they would at all. So that is that.

According to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, this ability to make and use tools is the deciding edge for our human species to emerge as the ultimate winner in this universal struggle for survival.

All plants and animals, and all living things in fact, survive by merely adapting themselves to their natural environment. Over a long period of time, they are able to develop special feature suited to their survival in their particular ecosystem, especially in matters of procuring food and reproduction.

Man now a victim

In contrast, human beings are the only species that, apart from adapting themselves, can also adapt their environment to their survival needs with the help of tools. Tools.- especially the technological innovations and the mass production of new sophisticated multi-task tools of all descriptions in the last few centuries have enabled man to dominate this good Earth.

What few people have realised, is that man has also become a victim of his blinding success in the making and using of tools.

For one thing, within our system of market economy, your average person has mortgaged his entire adult life towards servicing the debts for the purchase of his tools, especially his house and his car. Now that everything can be bought on the basis hire-purchase, you could say that a modern person works hard all his life just to afford his tools. The tools have turned around and become the masters of man.

But modern man has become a slave to his tools in more ways than one. Take your average city slicker for instance. He would not know how to spend his leisure hours at all without his television set and his radio. His worldview, his political viewpoints, his moral values, his sense of comedy and tragedy, are all shaped by that idiot box of a tool.

Likewise, he has forgotten how to walk, ride a horse or a bike, or even take a bus, for his daily locomotion is entirely dependent upon the car. When that machine breaks down, he feels as if his limbs have been amputated. When the car is stolen, he experiences the kind of grief which he reserves only for the death of his father or mother.

Before the current age of technological wonders, people knew how to communicate effectively. They talk to one another, face to face, toes to toes. They also wrote letters. They used to rejoice in the conviviality of the human spirit, when it was possible for the heart to touch another heart.

Nowadays, dehumanising machines stand in the way of real and meaningful communication. People everywhere punch frantically on the keys of their ubiquitous mobile phones, sending truncated hurried unreasoned unfeeling messages and mistaking these for exchanging the secrets of the soul. For those hooked to chat rooms on the Internet, their lot is even more tragic. There, they are cut off from real people in the real world, and spend countless hours in that fantasy land that is cyberspace.

It seems as if the more developed and advanced our communication technology, the less human understanding there is among individuals and groups of individuals. The bloody clash of civilisations that sweeps our globe to-day is not the least bit ameliorated by advance in our communication tools. In fact, better transmission of information has accelerated the risks of massive acts violence bred out of hatred.

Nowadays, our wisdom in using tools have been far outstripped by our ingenuity in making more and more clever and dangerous tools. All kinds of bigotry and hatred will now have at their disposal the ultimate toll: our huge stockpile of thermonuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. The extinction of the human race will not be due to their stupidity usually associated with brute animals, but will be the result of our overwhelming cleverness with inventing new tools.

We are a very flawed species indeed. Perhaps we deserve to be extinct one day.