18 July 2008

un-plugged


as i was about to board the bus yesterday, i realized i had left my phone at home. i felt like a samurai without a sword, waging the pros of hand-to-hand combat versus a battle glittery steel. i had to make immediate choice: risk being late for a job interview or leave my weapon at home. sullen, i boarded the bus and made my way to the back of the bus. how bad can it be to be unplugged?

on the ride downtown, i struck up an interesting conversation with a lady who was also on her way to an interview and my handy-dandy NFT supplied my maps. i had a little wave of panic when i thought the address was wrong and i wouldn't have my internet to troubleshoot the problem, but that proved itself unnecessary and i showed up for my interview ten minutes early and rocked it. so far so good. then i realized that i had about 2 hours to kill before my next interview and i would be so much better off reading and preparing for it, rather than idly wasting that time reading SF weekly. (that being an enormous understatement considering my "deer in the headlights" moment with the firm's partner on the EASIEST question known to man)

later that night, i went to see the new BATMAN movie just to be as consumer america as possible. after getting my midnight dinner of a large cherry coke and popcorn, i noticed the line of kids waiting to get into the imax, seated i might add. oodles of them sprawled out on the floor dressed in all black amidst mounds of smashed popcorn. about half of them were plugged into an iPod, despite their friends being seated right next to them and one cluster actually had their MacBook with them. the phenomenon continued when i turned around at one point in the theater to see that almost everyone had an illuminated screen in front of them (yes, another MacBook) and they were clicking away, playing games or listening to music, despite the fact that they are out to a movie with their friends.

so let me get this straight- we facebook, myspace, twitter, linkin and blog our lives away to stay connected so that when we actually go out with our friends, (to plug into a movie i might add) we ignore them?! seems a disconnected type of connect, and a little more like the people on WallE than i'd care to admit. the irony is that we glean these lessons FROM A MOVIE and that i feel my avenue for venting this frustration is a BLOG!

1 comment:

Robert Dyson said...

i think the novelty of "lifestreaming" is going to wear off at some point, or at least, it will become less of a "woohoo i'm everywhere and nobody cares!" and more of a useful thing. at least, i hope so.

on the (very rare) occasion that i forget my phone, i panic at first...but then i feel a sort of inner peace. yep. nothing is going to blow up, and there's nothing that can't wait. right?

blog on.