You know
the kind. The kind that you see sitting across from each other at the
restaurant with so so food, soup, pie and dated décor? The kind not saying a
word.
I don’t
mean silence is bad. I think sitting sweetly silent with someone is magical.
I mean the distant silent. The kind you half swear not to be and half fear
you will be someday. The kind you wonder how they every got together in the
first place. The kind that never seem to smile. The kind that when they do talk
it is about the weather, dinner options, picking up cat food or the weather
again.
We just
don’t talk anymore.
And we
don’t do we?
I mean we
talk to each other but not REALLY talk to each other. And we are doing it together. All of us, everywhere, are
collectively not talking together.
Not to
bring you down in the middle of the week. (Too late Carrie) I am just observing
something going on with myself, my friends, my work colleges, construction
workers, carnies, soccor moms, corporate execs, you know, people in general.
We don’t
talk. We text.
And we are
on our phones constantly. All.
The. Time.
If we
aren’t texting, we are emailing, or surfing the web or playing a game.
I saying
texting is bad? No. Is email bad? Probably not. Is triumphantly taking down
zombies with plants bad? Definitely not.
Is being so
absorbed in our phone that we miss out on not only what is happening but who is
happening around us bad?
Again, I
don’t want to bring everybody down. (Still too late Carrie) I am just wondering
here, so please wonder with me.
Why are we doing it? What do we get out of it?
More time?
I don’t know, I think we live in a culture with a disease called busyness.
The ability
to connect more with loved ones? Yes, this one is cool. I can say I love you to
my mom. (Hi Mom! Yes, my mom texts) We can do facetime to distant relatives and
send family photos to one another. But I must admit, I read some of the love letters that the average Joe wrote
to average Jane in the 1800’s and
compare it to an “ I luv u” text
of today and find myself daydreaming of waist coats and pantaloons.
Temporary
escape? This is handy. If we need
a small “time out” from our day we can escape into our phones. You can plan a fake vacation or look up
Halloween costume ideas for next year in seconds.
Quick
upper? Yes, I think a lot of us do this. I don’t know how to handle the fight I
had with my boyfriend or the impending deadline at work so I am going to feel
better about myself by totally rocking candy crush right now.
Avoidance?
I don’t want to talk to my neighbor so I will check in with the news instead. I
lose something though, I never really get to know my neighbor.
More
opportunities to know more things? This is true. But again, we lose something.
The TV show “How I Met your Mother” summed it up perfectly. It showed the main
characters several years ago arguing about what the most consumed food is. Fast
forward to present and they are all on their phones. Someone calming says
“bread.” Today the rousing debate
takes a back seat to the all knowing Google.
It is not
all bad. I love having a smart phone.
I have no
need for a GPS. I can know what the weather will be like in 5 days anywhere in the
world. I can look stuff up on Wikipedia. If I want to know what a celebrity is
thinking I can look it up on Twitter. If I want to know what my friend from
high’s schools kid looks like I can look on facebook. If I want to know what is
happening in Nepal I check out BBC news. It I want to know how many calories I
burned I turn on my run app. If I want to feel bad about the state of my home I
look up pictures on pinterest of
immaculate crafty storage units that look amazing and are made out of q tips
and junk mail. And if none are satisfying I ask Siri (who has VERY selective
hearing) to play music and she does. Most of the time…
Smart
phones make us smarter.
But do they
make us better?
Something
is bugging me. Something about me is bugging me. And it has to do with talking
and connecting and being present with my surroundings. Mostly though, it has to
do with listening.
I used to
be much better at it.
I used to
sit with someone and look in their eyes and want to hear what they had to say.
I still do that with my inner circle. But I used to be much better at it with
people who were not in my inner circle.
Now I find
myself wanting to look something up while someone is talking or go on to the
next part of the conversation or interject my thoughts or insert my opinion or
play a stupid game more that I want to give the person in front of me my
undivided attention.
And the
person I am talking to I am sure notices this. They are probably thinking,
“Hello! Can you hear me? Is this thing on? Testing one two three...”
Maybe not.
Maybe all they are thinking is that they can’t wait to get home to check out
the latest Game of Thrones episode.
All I know
is listening is important. It is the first step toward intimacy. Have you ever
had someone that you have known for years say something revealing about
themselves to someone else and you were standing right there and you turned to
them and said, “You never told me that.” Or “ I never knew that.” And the
person answers back, “ I told you this", or "You never asked.”
I used to
be better at this. I used to love to talk with people about anything or
everything. I used to LOVE to talk to people about the stuff that really
mattered, the important things. The things we live for and long for and love
for.
The things
Google can’t tell us.
So lovely readers please hold me accountable. I am going to start putting away
my phone when there are people around me. I want to do with this with my
friends. My acquaintances. With
strangers. People in the grocery store. People that live next door. People that
are lot like me and people that are nothing like me.
I want to
learn to listen again. And maybe then we can talk. REALLY talk.
And mom, if
you are reading this, I love you and will call you soon.
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