While writing a paper on the types of societies that might exist in a zombie society, my gaming laptop crashed, and nothing we did could fix it. My trusted tech said that it was probably the chipset or the motherboard. Whatever it was, it was going to be expensive to fix and probably temporary. That’s the way gaming laptops go, he said. They are expensive, run hot, and live short lives. This was goodbye, he said. And though many people would take a lot more time trying to find solutions, especially given that this laptop was right around 2,000 USD when I purchased it only 3 years ago in 2022, I felt that it was time to let go. In any case, a gaming laptop is such a delicate thing, with all its guts compressed into a single mass. And they are made to be used in the most absurd and abusive ways. I certainly remember gaming and feeling like the thing was about to die, and die painfully, but it kept going, and going, and going…

This was especially true when I played Total War: Warhammer II. It chugged, even if I turned down the settings. I had to play at a lower resolution. But even when I played other games, if they were AAA, it would heat up considerably, even going above 100 sometimes. I know I shouldn’t have continued when it did that, but I did. It also sat idle on 60 degrees, even after it had been thoroughly cleaned and when I used a cooling pad. Those things are simply meant to be used in ways that are not healthy for electronics. They are made so small and delicate and slender, and then they tell us to use them in ways that would inevitably destroy them. That is beautiful, in a way, if they weren’t so expensive.

In any case, I bought a new PC. There is always a dopamine rush when we receive new things, especially expensive things. This PC cost a lot. It cost a bit more than even that laptop, but I expect that this will last me at least a decade, and even then the parts could be switched around, upgraded, and if something goes wrong then only the faulty part needs to be replaced.

What I didn’t expect is how I felt about my laptop. I felt like we had more time. It had become a part of my day, and being with it made me feel almost as though I was with a friend. I had grown attached to it. The Japanese believe that, after 100 years, a thing develops a spirit: tsukomogami. In Western philosophy, we have something similar in panpsychism or vitalism. Philosophers of object-oriented ontology also believe that objects have a kind of “life” (although their terms and concepts are so obtuse that I am not convinced of their methods…). I have written before elsewhere that I find such ideas puerile and simplistic, but in an affective sense I do understand the impulse to bestow objects a kind of independent life or mind.

Like people, they begin to have their preferences. They do not say it, but these preferences are the things that, if done to them, would damage or destroy them. For example, my laptop did not being wet or being handled roughly. It did not like heat, although it produced a lot of heat, especially when it was doing what it was supposed to especially – in this way, it also had contradictory desires and drives the way a person or human subject would.

In this way, my laptop came alive to me. I supported it, and it did its job. And we have done many things together. He allowed me to enjoy many things. And he did all he could, before he could not do it anymore. I wish he had given me more signs of his failing health. It was all so sudden. The only signs I got was a single blue screen (which I thought was typical of any windows system, given that it was very, very rare) and my time & date being set incorrectly no matter how many times I synced it. This led me to believe for a bit that it was the cmos, but that did not turn out to be the case, as when we replaced the cmos battery, it did not come back to life.

I will miss that laptop fondly, even if I am now using a PC that has updated components. It is strange that way, but also I think something we all can relate to, regarding many different things. Especially things that we use often, and so serve us well.

I like to think that this PC is its reincarnation.

Hello, old friend. You look different. Stronger.

Let’s pick up where we left off.