To Boldly Go! in anticlimatic

What an interesting day, logistically speaking. At one point my fair lady dragged me somewhat against my will into a haunted house, paid for the tickets, and then shoved me in front of her once we were inside, choking me with my own shirt collar from behind and screaming at every bump and buzzer and flicker. Naturally, she loved it. I enjoyed it myself, finding it more interesting and creative than scary, but I don’t think I got quite as much out of the experience as she did- for is there any greater thrill in life than confronting fear?

Got me thinking about cell phones and what it was like in the distant past. There are many things, from way back when, that make very little sense now- but there were also things, way back when, that made much more sense than they do today. Parsing them is difficult, but I thought of an interesting side effect to smart phones and social media that might only be noticeable and relevant to those of us who remember adult life before them:

There is a very specific type of pacification, taken for granted, that comes with the cell phone social media paring. A familial type of comfort, wherever you go, to know that you can always reach out- to anyone, anywhere- for any kind of advice, direction, support, information, confirmation, or just to connect with someone we know for the sake of connection. I remember life to be very different without that, and I think because of that- though I suppose it may have just been the frightened ignorance of youth. ..

-but really, I think it was because of that. Because back then the web of the world, of all of us, was dark- visible only at a flashlight’s distance. We were limited to finding the people we could actually walk over to, and knock on their doors. Or ring their phones. Same difference- poll their house for human beings. Sometimes they were there- the door opened, the phone picked up- sometimes silence, or an answering machine.

I remember spending my time in a 50/50 split of socialization and absolute aloneness. Each would beg the other to come, and they balanced atop one another indefinitely. The aloneness fascinates me today. I yearn for it, I think- but fear it gone. It’s not enough to just be alone, alone- unless everyone else is on the same page, there’s no social value in it. Going off the grid alone in a tiny dark corner of a map is not the same as being in a gigantic dark map with millions of other people. There’s magic of possibility in that, but not really if it’s just you.

Navigating life as an island unto oneself- an individual with core directives custom to that individual, determining the attitude and trajectory of that individual- has less meaning and reward if no one else is doing the same. It robs the socializing world and all its rich potential of its dynamism. Outcomes grow dull. Safer, and less interesting and rewarding.

Trading anything for safety is such a waste, I feel. And anyone not deluded with some type of eternal life fantasy, conscious or not, should feel the same. Yet this is what was traded, on an emotional level, when we all took home smart phones and social media.

Tragic.