Handshakes Are The New Blow Jobs

Amish communities like the states before the ratification of the Constitution enjoy sovereignty and make their own rules. One rule that seems to be universal among them is a distant relationship with telephones. The Amish use pay phones but will not have one in their homes. The reason? If someone can call you they are less likely to come visit. 

How right they are. 

It amazes me that we refer to cell phoning, texting and twittering as connectedness when what they really are is distance. People did not often write letters to someone they could see face to face. Love letters were a special case. They materialized intimacy, allowed the writer time and space to find the words to express emotions intelligibly, and substituted for physical proximity in the forbidden hours of candle light. Most of all they showed effort and the commitment that putting it in writing suggests.

Now we collect "friends" on websites, share thoughts that sound like advertising jingles and flex our genitals fancying ourselves the masters of our nutshell universe. And we are right.

For all our time saving devices we no longer seem to have time to actually go and see and interact with people. We don't have time because we are slaves to our technology. I have to check my messages, read my texts, emails, tweets, catch my shows, listen to my Itunes. We do this sitting at home or in a public space like parks and Starbucks. Turning to the person next to you and saying Hi is becoming unimaginable. 

Early evenings in the park I see parents still in their business garb pushing their toddler along while their face is buried in their Blackberry. Quality time.

 So we watch human beings share a space and interact supposedly spontaneously and this we call a reality show. Of course it must be some sort of absurd contest. You can't have people together that's incestuous. We must vote or kill them off one by one. There can only be one winner while the rest are obviously losers.

We're all losers. We're losing the sense of being co-workers, neighbors and fellow citizens. We network with people rather than really getting to know them.  Perhaps our mobility assured this. Few want to live in the old neighborhood. They want better. Companies have no problem shuffling employees around the country. Children grow up with little sense of permanence and home. We don't even watch the same TV shows or read the same news. Everything is niche.

Tellingly, the vast majority of tweets and texts are where I am right now. Why? Because we are nowhere.

Don Arrup

Satire1