Cellular osmosis
C
ell phone conversation is cheap.
C
all me while I'm choosing between frozen broccoli or okra in the frozen section.
T
ext me while I'm in a staff meeting because you know that I can't talk at that moment (but you still pine for immediate attention).
F
ind me at the touch of a button when I am nowhere to be found, denying that I want to be found, and anxiously awaiting your next attempt to reach out to me.
N
o! Let me suggest something more fulfilling.
C
onsider that I have two telephones already (and even my mother-in-law's best friend's grandson has their not-so-secret code).
C
onsider that I don't have to saddle the horse or round the Magellan Straits to see you and that just a 30 minute bipedal effort puts you at my front door or me at yours.
I
nvest in me - strategize, plan, corrupt yourself by listening to your own thoughts, conspire with your heart, inseminate and invigorate a costly moment of rapture when you spend yourself (and me too) to share allever (whatever) it is that we share.
B
e in my face to converse with your eyes (the pathway to your soul), the movement of your lips (the words that course through your mind but never take flight), the suave gesticulations of your delicate shoulders (imagining possible tactile sensations), the uneasy shift of weight from one nadega [buttocks] to another (as comfort zones are breeched or dissappointedly never reached), the touch on an elbow (timidity with prudence to protect a sensitive heart), the intentionally accidental bump of an ankle under the table (don't you catch my body language?).
G
ive me three-dimensional conversation and put your cell phone away.
Once upon a time my family had three cell phones. Cost was one factor in reducing that number but it also
became apparent that the use of the phone revolved around non-essential needs or surreptitious intent. It
also dawned upon me that the phones had become pervasive and an absolute "necessity" for modern communication
within the realm of my compatriota. It wasn't simply the annoyance of the poor driving manners being
demonstrated by motorists absolutely unaware that their multitasking skills were simply inefficient. I became
readily apparent that husbands and wives or significant-others had become rendered powerless in making such
deep decisions as to the type of canned peas that they should be buying and had become reliant upon this
modern device to guide them through the traumatic experience of grocery shopping. Everywhere one looks
nowadays, singular strollers in the park, fly-fisherpersons at the solitude of their secret fishing holes,
museum visitors in need of providing display by display updates to demonstrate their experiences to other
elite members of their elite membership in that club that understands their shared love of art. No
longer does gratification in communication have to wait, be developed, be recorded for later dispersal.
It is now immediate.
And the world is a better place for this?
I hardly suggest that we become luddites and reject advances made in technology, but please, balance would be fitting.
Matthew Berigan, December 20, 2004
Voltar