The Labyrinth & The Lie: How Technology Became A Fool’s Errand by Jeff Callaway

The Labyrinth & The Lie: How Technology Became A Fool’s Errand


by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet


There was a time, not so long ago, when technology was a simple servant. It was a hammer in a toolbox, a lamp on a desk. Its purpose was plain, its function clear. A word processor wrote words. An email program sent letters. There was no pretense, no subtle agenda baked into the code. It was a tool, and a tool you could trust. You paid your dues, you owned the device, and it did what it was told.

But somewhere along the road, the servant became the master. That simple lamp became a spotlight pointed directly into your soul, and the hammer became a cudgel to beat you into submission. The promise of connection, of limitless information, was a lie whispered in the dark. It was a bait-and-switch, a hook hidden beneath the shimmering surface of an app store.

I recently walked into this digital booby trap myself. I had to, you see, because the giants of the internet now hold the keys to the public square, and if you want to preach truth, you must stand on their grounds. I needed a simple tool to manage a simple task, so I went to the Facebook-owned messenger that was pushed on me like a snake oil salesman's cure. The app, called WhatsApp, invited me to create a group. "Add friends," it said, in a kind and welcoming voice. No warnings, no fine print. Just a friendly invitation.

So I did what any man with a purpose would do: I added fifteen or so folks I know and trust—people I could share a prayer or a poem with, with a single click. A simple act, a simple goal.

The moment I hit "save," the screen went dark. My account, not a day old, was deleted. Banished from the digital land. For what? For using the very feature they dangled in front of me. The machine, in its infinite and soulless wisdom, had mistaken an honest man for a spammer. It saw not a human being trying to connect, but a data pattern that matched some faceless, corporate rule.

This is the central absurdity of our time. We are told these tools are built for us, for our convenience and our community, but they are designed to be a cage. They are designed to do too much, to know too much, and in doing so, they have lost their original purpose and their very soul.

The modern tech giants have mastered the art of "dark patterns"—a term for a user interface crafted to manipulate and deceive. They use trickery and psychological parlor games to get us to give away our data, to accept invasive terms, to stay on their platforms long after our work is done. They make the "right" choice—the one that benefits them—the easiest to click. They make leaving a service as hard as escaping a Roach Motel. And in this endless, digital labyrinth, the simplest of actions, like gathering a few friends together, becomes a crime.

The problem is not a lack of technological capability. No, the problem is a perversion of it. The brilliance of human innovation, a gift from God, has been turned to a corrupted end. They build these towering, complex cathedrals of code, not to lift us up, but to keep us trapped, monetizing our every thought and click. The simplicity of honest communication is buried under layers of algorithms, data harvesting, and a relentless push for "engagement" that feeds the machine, not the human spirit.

It is as the prophet says: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20). They have called a complicated, manipulative mess "simple" and a pure act of human connection "spam." This isn't a glitch. It is a feature. The system is working exactly as it was designed to.

They have made a spider web and called it a net. And like any creature caught in that web, we exhaust ourselves struggling against its sticky threads, all while the spider waits for us to grow still. But to be still is to surrender, and we were not made to surrender to such a false and corrupt master.

So I say, let the digital giants keep their endless, complex spider webs. Let them have their algorithms and their lies. The truth is simple and it does not need a million lines of code to be heard. It needs a voice, and a human heart. And the truth is, the most valuable things in this life—a shared word, a moment of presence, a hand in the dark—are found not in the glowing screen of a phone, but in the simplicity that lies far beyond it.

And to that, I say: Good riddance to the web. Let us find our way back to the light.


~ by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

© 2025 Texas Outlaw Press



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