Phone Away From Home

The heart is the in direction, but cell phones
are about being out there. You do the math.

(First published Saturday, March 29, 2003 in the column BREW, initially intended to be called “Cell My Soul”)

WHAT, no “Welcome to the club!” sign?

Or should that be, “Welcome to the jungle.”

Ah Lord, I’ve succumbed; I’ve given myself over to the dark side that is cell phone. And I don’t feel better for having done so.
Some of us, despite “technological advancement,” like to think of ourselves as “purists” – the last bastion of humanity prepared to still do many things without computers or similar doodads.

I mean, convenience is one thing; but cultivated laziness is another altogether. The computer culture has submerged peoplekind into such a slough of slothfulness it ain’t funny anymore.

Oh, and I don’t mean only with respect to calling your wife on the cell if she’s out in the garden. I’m mainly talking about the hard work we’ve learned to apply less and less towards positive, nurturing, soul-building interaction with our fellow human.

That’s the real killer, there.

It may seem quite the contrary when one looks at, say, me. Now, with my phone, no longer can I twitch my brows at people’s inquiries about how to “get onto” me and respond, “Well, I live under a rock, so you could try putting one foot up, then the other.”

No, now I can have contact. This is good, right?

Sure, sure.

Psychic texting

Before my cell phone, I used to ESP (extra sensory perception) people. That is to say, I would project my thoughts out into the ether to a person’s soul address. Sure enough, they contacted me an hour or week later, depending on how urgent or not my communiqué was.

It’s like psychic text messaging. Everybody can do it. It’s simply that we’ve mostly forgotten how through lack of use.

Add one more person to the list. Aren’t we advancing along swimmingly!

My, my, how we love the easy road. That’s natural, it is said. It is more natural to want to make an effort; to want options.

The smaller the world gets, what with Internet this and satellite that, the less rather than more options we’ll have. Pretty soon we’ll all HAVE to pay with credit cards. Pretty soon we’ll all HAVE to write in Internet-speak: “I’ll c u,” and all love turned to “luv”; with altered smiley faces succinctly stating our emotions at a touch of the right keys.

Pretty soon a computer will match us up with the perfect mates (so who needs to actually openly and honestly meet someone?), which is appropriate considering the relationship will be founded on a text note here, a text note there ... and what a way to get to the heart of the matter.

Cell-phones have superseded jewellery; become the neo drug, the most namby-pamby application of art nouveau. They’re like the new phallic symbols.

I see people all around me enslaved by the damn things: nuns even, and school girls; your father, your lover, your friend. They break away from you like they can’t resist the call, and it’s the cell-phone that has their focus, a moment ago all yours. Tell me this is not insisting separation.

“Godallmighty, it’s just a phone!”

Right, and splitting atoms was just making energy. Spraying crops with DDT was just killing insects. George W. Bush was just talking.

I can’t tell you how many people would harangue me to get a phone. You know, now that I have one, none of those people are calling me.

If someone really wants something, they make a way for it to happen, hard or not. Then it has meaning.

When we want certain things to be easier, it’s only because they have so little meaning we aren’t inclined to “waste” precious effort on them.

So we cultivate laziness of the hand because of lethargy of the heart.

The more we do this, the more detached we become from the hard-working self meant to manifest loving in action.

Getting a cell-phone has not brought me closer to people who love me, but rather exposed me to how few real friends I have.

While I could have done without facing that, the greatest tragic consequence of this is it has inhibited my ability and desire to truly reach out and touch someone. Are we not all possible victims of the same? So watch your content.

Talk softly and with your guard, my dears.