My soul
has been a bit sad lately, my heart a little achy.
Do I know
why?
I think
it’s because I’m human.
I also
think it’s my smartphone… (I’ve never
typed that word before in my life.)
I’m not
going to tell you why, you already know.
You’re very likely reading this on one.
That’s why I’m trying not to use long sentences or paragraphs, nobody
wants that on a teeny-tiny-ass screen.
Dammit, that was long…
You
already know how bombarded one can feel on social media.
You
already know the hollowness of comparing yourself to others in your circles.
You also
know the emptiness that digital communication leaves in us, the ice between the
ones and zeros.
You know
the isolation of the so-called connectivity - head down, shoulders in – lost in
absolutely nothing.
Listen,
maybe I shouldn’t assume you feel the same as I do. I’m sure many of you use your phone with
great care and prudence.
You know
what? I can’t maintain this style. I can’t continue on with these short
sentences and I love long paragraphs and I like to juxtapose them to short
ones. It’s a balance game writers like
to play, to visually move the reader’s eyes and encourage them to move
along in the narrative, an impossible tactic on a three by five screen.
***
As all
boys do, I watched my father a lot growing up.
He whistled and I learned to whistle.
He put his hands in his pockets, I still do. He crossed his right leg over his left, so
did I. And, he smoked and so did I for
over thirty years.
I don’t
have many moving-picture-like memories, I tend more towards polaroids and
panoramic landscapes, Dutch still-lifes and a nude or two. One of the few I do have is a short scene of
my dad getting up from his chair in my childhood home. He is dressed in a suit, a charcoal one, as
was the fashion in the late fifties and well into the sixties when this takes place. He is slim and the suit fits him nicely, he
has a muted maroon bowtie on and brown loafers and belt.
The light
is morning like, I’d guess we are headed for church. His chair has a footstool which he likes
close when he puts his feet up. My
mother calls and he brings his knees up and gets his feet on his side of the
stool and pushes it out so he can stand.
His hands go to his knees, I can still see his turquoise and gold ring,
he makes the dad grunt and sort of rocks up still bent at the waist, he
straightens up slowly. I don’t think he
sees me watching him even though I feel close, close enough to smell his Old
Spice, black coffee and Camels.
As he gathers
himself he absented-mindedly taps his hand on his left breast. The hand, not satisfied, then reaches inside
the coat, first into his shirt pocket, then the inside pocket of the jacket. Now, both hands, in tandem, quickly shoot
into the outside pockets of the jacket – they worked back then – and then into
the front pockets of the slacks. These
jingle satisfactorily, but the dance goes on to the back pockets where they
linger. He looks silly, in fact, it all
seems silly.
Dad looks
perplexed, I am straight-up confused.
Finally,
he looks down and over at me. He smiles
at me and cocks his head as he sees them out of the corner of his eye, a pack
of Camel’s and a white book of matches. His
face is pleased, relieved. He chuckles
at himself, as men do, and winks at me as he put them in the inside pocket of
his coat, pats them knowingly a couple of times, deftly buttons his coat with
one hand and walks towards the kitchen.
End scene.
***
More than
anything, what impressed my little eight- or nine-year-old self was his
satisfaction at finding them and, to some extent, the matching anxiety at not
having them. Years and years later, I
worked in a restaurant where, as a bartender, I wore a suit and tie every
day. I probably did that cigarette dance
a dozen times a week. I caught myself at
it one time in the mirror behind the scotch and bourbon and saw my father, I
gave myself the same wink he had given me that Sunday morning past.
Why, I
wonder, am I bringing this up? Because,
I see this same dance these days, but now it’s for a phone. Just last week at the grocery store I saw a
lady do the extended version of it. As
she stood just outside her car, door still open, with growing anxiety she
checked all her pockets and rifled somewhat madly through her purse, finally
ducking back into the car and coming back up with that satisfied, relieved look,
and… a phone clutched triumphantly in her hand.
I watched
smokers for years as a bartender and waiter, back in the days of smoking
sections and lounges. I’ve watched, as,
mid conversation a hand reaches for a pack and, with seemingly no concentration
or effort a smoke was acquired and lit.
The same way I see folks so absentmindedly reach for their smartphones
these days. I’ve seen the agitation of a
guy out of cigarettes concerned about when he’ll get another mirrored in the
look of someone whose phone is out of power or, worse, not connected. I’ve watched as one person at my bar lit a
cigarette and the whole bar lighting up at the scent of the first just as I’ve
seen one person check their phone and watched as those around them looked at
theirs.
I read an
article I can’t find right now that said something to the affect that in
fifteen or twenty years we’ll all be wondering what the hell we were thinking
giving iPhones and androids to children, just as we wonder now what society was
thinking when we let – encouraged, really - young men and women begin smoking
in their teens.
I know you
may be thinking that this analogy is a little dire and, seeing it here in black
and white, I’d tend to agree. However, I
know what addiction feels like, I know its ups and downs, its desire and relief. I know the dopamine rush as well as the physical
anticipation of that next hit. I know
how good the ritual of an addiction feels, how true and real the desire for a
thing can be. I know.
And, as
God is my witness, my smartphone feeds that cycle today just as surely as those
Marlboros did for all those years.
I don’t
like it. What’s weird is, truth be told,
I liked smoking and damn near every cigarette was enjoyable, honest.
Not with
my smartphone. It mostly just pisses me
off and disappoints me. The news is so
dire, so ugly mean and intense. So much
so that, for me, even a decent, happy story, a “feel-good” story I think they
call them, can taste saccharine, treacly.
Facebook consistently disappoints me.
In the early years I really enjoyed it, but now so few friends even post
anything, it seems a bit pointless.
There’s one
more thing I’d like to say: I am not on
this earth to be advertised to…
Well, that’s
not a very good sentence. Listen, that
smartphone is specifically designed and coded and programmed to advertise. “Sponsored” posts on FB, ads in every video,
Amazon notifications out of the blue.
Ads on the games we play, the blogs we read, the podcasts and vlogs. I won’t go on.
Damn, I
completely forgot you were reading this on your phone.
I’ll let
you go.
I’m gonna
turn my Facebook off later tonight, Fat Tuesday.
I will set
my phone down where the house phone used to be - it's a pretty spot - and turn up the ringer and hope for
the best. It'll be right here, on top of that wooden box, nestled under the shamrock which I noticed has two hidden blooms:
You see, I still need a communication
device, I like texting and I need to get phone calls. That’s the
insidiousness of the whole thing, something you need, something useful, paired
with this lame entertainment device that just wants to separate us from our
money. That’s fucked up.
(My
apologies again to those using great care and prudence with their phones, and those
few who still read things on their computer.)
I plan to
keep writing here, but I won’t be able to promote them by posting on FB, so ya’ll
won’t know it’s here. Oh, well…
Keep in
mind these are just my observations, my responses, my feelings. One cannot qualify every statement and
sentence with an “IMHO” or “for me” or “I can’t speak for you, but…” in a bit
of writing, it becomes tedious.
I’ll
probably return to FB after Easter, but, I hope to get rid of this phone for good.
It sorta
burns my hand…
Peace.
Look me up sometime if you think of me.
I’ll be here.
