Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Out For a Walk



I went for a walk just now before making myself some lunch.  In my wandering I came across a man out cleaning up his yard a bit.  He was wearing a large set of headphones that looked like they could have a radio (at least that’s what I gathered from the antenna sticking up).  I was reminded upon seeing him of a common sight while I waited for the train home from work.  The platform where I caught the train ended in an intersection and generally waited for the train close to the intersection.  I routinely watched drivers and passengers as they came to the intersection and waited for the light to change.  I noticed after a while that a considerable majority of the drivers would  immediately look down at their phones as soon as they came to a stop and many of those would type a message while they waited.  

That behavior reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s wonderful short story “The Murderer” in which the protagonist is subjected to psychological evaluation for having destroyed appliances in his home because of the music and spoken messages they spouted.  In relaying his reasoning for the destruction he recounts listening to passengers on the bus speaking in their wrist phones; their conversations were meaningless (reporting exactly where they were at any given moment of their journey) but they evidently felt compelled to conduct them regardless. 

Bradbury was a bit off of course as many futurists are (texting and tweeting etc. have displaced verbal communication) but the essence of his vision is remarkably prescient.  

I certainly don’t want to live in a world in which the enjoyment of golden silence is thought to be a pathology.  We are not there yet, but more and more I am viewed as a bit of an old fashioned curmudgeon: no smart phone, no twitter account, no facebook account, barely capable of texting.  Perhaps I am missing out on indescribable wonders, but I am loathe to surrender moments like this very one when I can watch snow fall out my front window and enjoy it in undisturbed silence.

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