Sitting outside this morning, smoking a cigarette and sipping a coffee, scrolling through Facebook posts, I suddenly thought: Why?
It seemed a pertinent question, pressing enough, as it were, to pierce the fog of daily habit. Why, in fact, do I have a phone at all, loaded with all the apps, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facetime, YouTube, for which I pay around 100.000 Rupiah a month? The fact is, no one ever calls me, unless they've dialed the wrong number. I rarely receive a message through any of the services. Why do I have this iPhone loaded with all these apps sitting with me at the table every morning? Is it just a habit, like smoking itself, or like coffee--a pleasant, cozy, meaningless habit?
There was a time when I used Facebook to connect with friends--to post and comment, to share ideas and humor--yet for a long while I have done little in the way of posting, or of commenting either. What I have done on Facebook since November 2016 is to scan the news for some decisive correction of our current national disaster. Yet I must admit, finally, that what I see day after day is merely an ongoing description of the disaster, enlarging, expanding, filling in such that disaster becomes only more fully a disaster. The more things have changed, the more they have stayed the same. So tragic, so lamentable, so deplorable. And so what? So nothing.
And so Facebook itself becomes tedious, boring, an uninterrupted parade of repetition. The story of the story of the story that has no end.
Why do I have this phone?
Maybe the flu is just making me feel sluggish and discontented. I don't know. Or maybe I feel that since I have such an expensive phone, I must properly apply the phone, whether the application has any meaning to me or not.
And now let us imagine that I have put the phone aside, retaining only a bare bones plan that will allow calls in and out in case of emergency. What then? How will I know the good news if there is good news (for you see I hope despite the growing proof of the hopelessness of hope)? How will I receive a message if not through Messenger? How should I find such total silence bearable?
Well, hell--what is it we did when there were no cell phones and apps?!
It seemed a pertinent question, pressing enough, as it were, to pierce the fog of daily habit. Why, in fact, do I have a phone at all, loaded with all the apps, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facetime, YouTube, for which I pay around 100.000 Rupiah a month? The fact is, no one ever calls me, unless they've dialed the wrong number. I rarely receive a message through any of the services. Why do I have this iPhone loaded with all these apps sitting with me at the table every morning? Is it just a habit, like smoking itself, or like coffee--a pleasant, cozy, meaningless habit?
There was a time when I used Facebook to connect with friends--to post and comment, to share ideas and humor--yet for a long while I have done little in the way of posting, or of commenting either. What I have done on Facebook since November 2016 is to scan the news for some decisive correction of our current national disaster. Yet I must admit, finally, that what I see day after day is merely an ongoing description of the disaster, enlarging, expanding, filling in such that disaster becomes only more fully a disaster. The more things have changed, the more they have stayed the same. So tragic, so lamentable, so deplorable. And so what? So nothing.
And so Facebook itself becomes tedious, boring, an uninterrupted parade of repetition. The story of the story of the story that has no end.
Why do I have this phone?
Maybe the flu is just making me feel sluggish and discontented. I don't know. Or maybe I feel that since I have such an expensive phone, I must properly apply the phone, whether the application has any meaning to me or not.
And now let us imagine that I have put the phone aside, retaining only a bare bones plan that will allow calls in and out in case of emergency. What then? How will I know the good news if there is good news (for you see I hope despite the growing proof of the hopelessness of hope)? How will I receive a message if not through Messenger? How should I find such total silence bearable?
Well, hell--what is it we did when there were no cell phones and apps?!
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