I’ve joined the ranks of the world again…
A few years ago I gave up my cell phone–well it was technically a year and a half I lived without using it, a year and a half my friends weren’t able to text me with any ease, a year and a half that reaching out had to be done via email, facebook messages or that old analog way, the landline. I sometimes see writers undertake such an endeavor and it always seems to be some kind of thing worth writing an online diary over, like it’s some addiction that needs explaining, like every moment is a possible memorable one throughout a day while not having access to your personal computer device. I mean, I get it, I do. I am one of those people who would sit in coffee shops not on the phone, sit in waiting rooms not on the phone, go to parks and sit in the park (also not on the phone), and I also drive NOT on the phone. I realize that things have exponentially become worse with these little devices we hold. I mean worse in terms of attention span and contact…it seems people feel the need to get their acknowledgment on social media, depend on it SO much that I cannot tell you how many times over the past span of time I have looked around me and seen the world while some people seem immersed inside the machine. I see people walking with them in front of them, I see them watching tv in the park, I see entire families and even groups of friends go out and take turns with their heads bent, totally unaware of anything aside from the screen in front of them. I see parents in the park immersed inside them, their children lonely and swinging, probably wishing they had an ipad, too. I especially despise how many people I see driving with the machine, eyes sometimes nowhere near the road and I expect them to take a life eventually and wonder if I honk at them, if I flip them off, will they do better next time? Will they maybe NOT kill someone for facebook or snapchat, will they put three seconds extra into thinking about what they are doing?
I am a honker, and Denver has turned me into that. Sometimes it is honking to say WTF, guys, but mostly it’s my hey, wait a minute I am here, don’t run into me, mostly because they consider the use of turn signals a nice suggestion, but certainly it is not a requirement for anyone, and the cops are nowhere to be found typically so that’s a useless wish.
I feel the need to remark on this now because I recently was cured of this affliction—and it’s hard for me to really get back on board with most of the world because I’ve lived without it as an extension of me so long that I feel uncomfortable sometimes holding it, owning it, having this thing. It’s more expensive than anything I personally own, save my car perhaps…but when I break down the cost on a daily basis to have really nobody be texting me or calling me…it seems extravagant and almost like it is taunting me with its expense, laughing at my break down and asking me why I don’t like it more. I mean, yeah it’s useful for researching things on the go…restaurants and stores and directions…but I was doing a lot of that by looking at these old fashioned things called maps and following their direction. It’s an IPHONE 6 so it’s definitely a lot higher end than I would normally strap myself with, but whatever…it’s mine, I suppose.
The point is, you can definitely live without it–though it would be hard for me to say I advocate immersing oneself wholly into the non contact world except my horse, buggy or wire…my mother called me infrequently when I had a phone and when I didn’t, so the normal things you all worry over were moot points to me.
It’s made me more introspective, this forced isolation, I suppose…it’s a wonder why I wasn’t writing like this every day…because I am great at wasting time, perhaps!!!
Welcome back.