I am surrounded by people mostly transfixed by the pallid glow of LED light hovering before their eyes. Ten years ago this would have been the scene in some freakish distopian movie set in the distant future; now it's a reality. There are a couple families with young children who are devoid of the technological distraction. Good. The news above squabbles the results of a recent study which reveals that parents who put their phones away at the table have better behaved children. This is news?!
Isolation can be a crowded environment.
It certainly changes the way we travel. We don't greet the person next to us on the plane, who might happen to be an interesting, theatrical person on his way to work at an orphanage in Nicaragua, an orphanage which sits underneath an active volcano, and who has read the very book you are reading and lives in the same city. No, that could be too uncomfortable. But the Atlanta-based belles in blue order us away from our touchable screens, so I stuck out my hand--I'm Simon, he's Mike--and a couple sentences later we were a mile-high and swallowed in the pages of the books we brought. At least they weren't iPads, like everyone else. At least we said 'hi,' unlike everyone else.
We are so eager to get where we are going we forget that there is something bound up in the process of getting there, something we would be remiss to miss.
But I am guilty myself. I sit here click-clacking away, occasionally looking up for a passing descriptive word or an inspiration rushing to her connection. And I check my watch hoping that more than three-and-a-half minutes have passed and I'm closer to ending this layover in Atlanta. However, this is the doldrums of travel and they've existed since Amerigo Vespucci sat in the Atlantic wondering where the wind ran off to. Well, even before then, but we didn't much know of their existence. The lull is a part of this process--it forces you to sit back, actually look around and think. You may even meet a nice guy named Mike who works as an event salesperson who does business with an army base in Georgia and lives where you do. But you have to work up the courage and say 'hi.' May we continually be unafraid to greet one another. We're only human, after all. Each one of us.
Isolation can be a crowded environment.
It certainly changes the way we travel. We don't greet the person next to us on the plane, who might happen to be an interesting, theatrical person on his way to work at an orphanage in Nicaragua, an orphanage which sits underneath an active volcano, and who has read the very book you are reading and lives in the same city. No, that could be too uncomfortable. But the Atlanta-based belles in blue order us away from our touchable screens, so I stuck out my hand--I'm Simon, he's Mike--and a couple sentences later we were a mile-high and swallowed in the pages of the books we brought. At least they weren't iPads, like everyone else. At least we said 'hi,' unlike everyone else.
We are so eager to get where we are going we forget that there is something bound up in the process of getting there, something we would be remiss to miss.
But I am guilty myself. I sit here click-clacking away, occasionally looking up for a passing descriptive word or an inspiration rushing to her connection. And I check my watch hoping that more than three-and-a-half minutes have passed and I'm closer to ending this layover in Atlanta. However, this is the doldrums of travel and they've existed since Amerigo Vespucci sat in the Atlantic wondering where the wind ran off to. Well, even before then, but we didn't much know of their existence. The lull is a part of this process--it forces you to sit back, actually look around and think. You may even meet a nice guy named Mike who works as an event salesperson who does business with an army base in Georgia and lives where you do. But you have to work up the courage and say 'hi.' May we continually be unafraid to greet one another. We're only human, after all. Each one of us.
Hi , I'm Aunt Salome and I'd love to meet with you more often over coffee. You have so much to add to my world through your eyes and ears. Until we meet, aggressively pursue writing and sharing and giving and intertwining your life with those you meet.
ReplyDeleteYou breathe to take it all in, you exhale the encounters for us to engage with. Thank you for the breath of fresh air to to help us smell the roses while we may.
great !! article !! i read it all through at once !!
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