Discuss: Am I Still Here?

Four thirty-nine AM . . . checking my e-mail.  Busted like Mom at the kitchen table when I was a kid.  The little portable tv staring at us during breakfast, Jack lalanne’s exercising and he is staring out at Mom and says, ‘‘Hey you sitting there, drinking your coffee and smoking your first cigarette of the day! Put those smokes away and get up from that table!’’ Mom almost swallowed her Kent, micronite filter and all.
    I don’t blame e-mail really.  I blame air-conditioning, party lines and vacuums, and especially cellphones; those old models with the giant batteries you had to lug around with you to use. 
    And people actually did!  I can never forget the guy in front of me in line at the bank, back in the day.  As the teller is counting out out his stacks of hundreds, his monster phone rings.  I’m shocked into paying attention as he screams into the phone for all to hear that ‘IF THAT PAPER ISN’T SIGNED BY NOON THE DEAL IS OFF !!!  Suffice to say that I knew we were doomed as a species if we continued to subject each other to this kind of abuse in a public place. I wanted to scream . . . OFF . . . OFF WITH HIS HEAD!
  Email?  So far, email is pretty tame.  There is nothing better than ignoring it for a few days and then coming back to tons of it and deleting the hell out of it.  Talk about empowerment.  you gotta love that!
    Thanx for the article!

Excellent essay. Speaks to the heart of the dilemma of technology and our growing pains in learning how to use it, but not overuse it.

Nice writing Anthony.  I just spent two hours in the snow and then read your essay online.  Go figure!

We’ve been conditioned since the introduction of telephones and then radios at the very beginning of the last century to rely on prosthetic electronic friendships. In the early days of radio and tv it was only the characters in serial dramas who became our prosthetic friends. Gradually the language of these shows became increasingly more explicit until “Friends’ became the best selling show of all time. The theme songs of all children’s shows emphasize that the main characters are the child’s friends ready to come and play with them.

But the curve of electronic friendship has become more sinister with miniaturization. Our MP3 players, iPods, iPhones, Blackberries etc themselves have become substitute companions whose company we prefer to that of real relationships since they are much more predictable and controlled.

Technology has conditioned us to live in an isolated, impersonal way and to accept substitutes for real face to face human interaction, so don’t be surprised that you’re checking your mail on the way into the wilderness. In our culture, it requires an effort of will to be without an electronic companion, just as it requires a similar effort not to overeat. We are completely unaccustomed to being totally alone and without gadgets. Our electronic devices are substitute friendships that amuse us at will.

I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail this year. One of the things I really enjoyed about hiking the trail was being able to share my adventure with people on a blog. I could post to my blog every few days from a town along the way. Some people would even Twitter from the trail while they were hiking, but that was too much technology for me.

The ability to share the experience while I lived it meant that I could spend days in contemplative solitude and feel connected to the people I cared about back home. I was never alone because they were with me in spirit following me online along the way.

The worst thing was email, however. Once I posted a question to an email list and sparked a lot of criticism. I was not online to defend myself and it got quite nasty. But in the grand scheme of things, it did not matter. The only thing that mattered was being out in nature watching the world pass beneath my feet.

thank you. if it was not for my daily meditation practice, and the daily reminder: every day fresh mind, then the speed and expectation of technology would truly drive me mad. Turn it off, turn all of it off. Breathe. In 100 years, it will be something else and we will all be gone. Right here and right now, that is all we have.

Yes. . . right. . . . and just HOW was this little bit of self-flagellation sent to us?

I wish that we were all blessed with fathers like you. You are right -and- Z’s world is also our world. Fathers, men really, are on the front line. As men find their balance, so will the world go. Thank you for lighting your trail.