Today I rise late, take a shower, swallow five pills from my pill sorter, coat my face with SPF 30 cream, and make the bed. Then I grab my laptop and prop myself against the pillows.
I proceed to waste two and a half hours dealing with Google. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? It’s the current crank — dealing with tech. It isn’t pretty, the amount of research and time required to figure out finally that there is in fact, no live person in existence to speak to about a Gmail storage crisis I’ve been having. My question is simple but needs an IRL brain, not AI, to think beyond the list of options available at the helpdesk at Google One.
The entire enterprise opens the door to several conundrums: 1. What to do when you reach a dead-end and need to solve a problem, nonetheless. 2. How to manage the time suck of computers and phones when, if you don’t utilize a computer or phone to solve the problem, you will lose the ability to use both devices for good. No Gmail. No internet. No Google. 3. How to return to the use of my own brain to figure out solutions to quandaries, if in fact my capacity to think hasn’t been entirely erased by my addictive use of the worldwide web.
Solving problems… all three conundrums lead to that goal. (And yes, I understand that there are big questions, many times bigger than Google storage, to be solved. And that my first world worry here sounds like privileged whining. It’s October 7th today, after all. Yet, I don’t think it’s only the affluent westerner who is caught up in the vice grip of technology. I am not alone in noting that time on devices is one of the more insidious concerns facing us at this time in history! It’s not just that we are losing our brain power, but think of the impact on human relationships, on our bodies withering in physical inertia, of addiction to a machine, of investing our leisure, our attention spans, our sexual desires in that machine. It is beyond nuclear.)
And I, along with everyone I know, have been squandering my precious time on computer assistance for everything and now am left distrusting my own perfectly adequate intelligence.
Suddenly, just like that, I have a brainstorm, following crumbs to the prize. I work the storage issue out with a few clicks, (adding my second Gmail account to a family package I already own, if you need to know!) and feel a wave of physical relief. Like a breast letting down — the tension pinching my facial muscles, raising my shoulders for combat, forcing the blood to throb in my head and chest, relaxes in a whoosh. Ah. Fixed. Ta da!
Space empties out. Time and storage capacity opens up to… My mind immediately scans for other problems to check off my list. And then I catch myself.
No! Creating space means not just turning to find other issues. It requires turning towards consciousness, awareness, being in the now, as the Buddhists might say. Be here now.
I close the computer and put on my sandals, grab my phone (I know!), and walk out of the apartment, then along the long, blue-carpeted hallway, and press the down button next to the elevator. I do not glance at my phone while waiting. When the elevator arrives, I say hello to the two people already inside and congratulate myself on remaining tech free in the small box for the minute it takes to arrive at the first-floor lobby area. I say, “Have a good day” to the screen-staring others, noting their sheepish responses as they look up to acknowledge my comment, and I march out of the building into the sunshine. A tiny breeze welcomes me into the outdoors.
Sauntering my way to Starbucks, I order a Cappuccino on my phone app, (okay, not a perfect anti-screen adventure, I admit) and pick up the coffee, leaving a do-gooder one dollar tip.
I feel better already. The extra hot, half-caf, 2% milk, coffee goes down like a shot of hard liquor — burning, fragrant, delicious. Ah. I say it out loud, rousing the guy dozing on the stone wall outside the store. I cross the street as the pedestrian sign flashes on, and then across the next bigger street, waiting for permission even though the other joggers and walkers dash past as soon as there’s a break in the traffic.
I bypass the entrance to my building, instead continuing down the path to the ocean. I never do this, just take off. I feel slightly naughty in my daring… I’m a predictable worker bee and can’t rest until I accomplish all the tasks on my list. Even though I know, truly understand, that there is no, and will never be an end to the list.
I remember back in college when finals time arrived, I put my head down and plowed through until every last one was done. Then and only then was I awarded a blissful reprieve — days, maybe weeks, of freedom, leisure, holiday. I could watch a movie, frolic with friends, stay up late and finish a juicy novel with no reservation or guilt.
But now, fifty years later, no such luck. The list goes on to infinity. I will die before it expires.
I lean down to take my sandals off at the edge of the beach, smile at the grandmom and baby in a stroller parked on and next to a bench, and mosey through the sand to the water. I feel a bubbling of something — wellbeing? Happiness? Joy? Yes, it is joy at finding this… the sun, the sand, the breeze, the water. I speed up until I meet the in and out of the thing, plop down right where the dry meets the wet and sip my luscious drink. This, this is where I belong. This. And yes, this may be the real solution to the biggest problem… how to become and stay alive.
