WHEN THERE’S A HUMAN BEING IN FRONT OF YOU, PUT AWAY YOUR PHONE

 

Yes, I know. I know. But what if…

            It’s someone who rarely calls and I want to talk to them. Or…

                        It’s an answer to a (non-medical and not from a doctor) question I’ve been waiting for.

 Or…

                                    It’s one of my kids just wanting to chat. Or…

’NUFF with the “ORs,”--- these really can wait because there’s a live human being you are with, as in NOW.

 

I have few friends who agree and fewer who act as I do.

 

So, what do I do? With some of the above I send a one-sentence text saying I will respond later unless this is an emergency. So far, it only qualified as such once, and that is to this day my one exception.

 

I go one further and usually go for walks by myself sans phone. This is more than being present because I’m with a live human being other than myself; it’s about being with the human being that is me.

 

I suppose this sounds radical to many. I am blessed in the sense that I grew up in days of yore and have an idea of what life without phone-slavery is like, and I have little fear of keeping that aspect present in my life now.

 

You do you. I post this just as a wee consideration.

“MR. WATSON COME HERE, I WANT YOU”

 ON THIS DATE, MARCH 10^TH, IN 1876…

From that first ever telephone call by Alexander Graham Bell and to this day, the world would never be the same.

 

“History was made” and “never be the same” are expressions used with abandon and lack of a sense of precision for trivial things. But when it comes to the invention of the telephone, this is, if anything, an understatement.

 

It started as an almost peripheral function, even as a few understood way back in 1876 that March 10^th was a paradigm shift, a game changer, a turning point from which nothing in the many ways we interact would be spared.

 

It started then and never stopped.

 

Look at us now, a humanity where many cannot function without phone in hand.