I'm walking up the stairs to meditate, part of my newly-reinvived (is that a word? revived, maybe) daily routine. As my foot disregardedly (that should be a word) lands on the next step, I find myself scrolling through pictures of laughing kids and a dog that my thumb has reflexively displayed before my vaguely-focused eyes. (Some day this will trip me up, literally.) Android notifications: the incessant, spasmodic metronome of my tireless pocket monster.
Someone just shared an album of photos of their trip. I want to drop in a note of humour, but the comment icon doesn't launch. Which means I'll have to try again from my desktop (note to self). That's if I can remember what wit I intend to pen by the time I descend. (Sure enough, some part of my brain troubles itself to keep firing a neuron (that is so a word!) so that would reappear again, not when I am conveniently at my desk and call for it to refresh, but randomly as stale repetition.
It sprays the scent of a forgotten intention,
lightly and automatically formed,
now tinged with guilt and a continuous sense of dropped balls and missed connections
(unabashedly judged "incomplete" despite a vast repertoire of unacknowledged comments whose sentiment may not even have reached the eyes of the intended audience, that interrupter among many who just dropped a random byte onto my crumb-covered plate). One obsessed neuron. One email + one notification of the email + 1 Google Photos notification of a shared album = One obsessed device.
Like the drip of a faucet I feel compelled to acknowledge its ominous existence, another contact with one of a (lately uncounted) collection of loose connections. Endless drips seeping in from email, facebook, texts. Drips that fill minutes, hours of my day like a tub (with the plug in), the tub that I will drown in (since I am, by nature, an introvert).
I am about to put a wrench to it: do the unthinkable and turn off all notifications. "Do not disturb": my powerful impassable pocket monster, now butler.
Silence.
15 minutes of guided mental stasis.
A fresh start. I stand mindfully. I stretch consciously.
Now I know what I intend for today.
And now I hack into my pocket monster's settings to turn off every last notification source. Silence, timeline! Silence, inbox!
(except for text messages ... because, well, that's 1 degree-of-freedom from human contact and could lead to a voice in my ear or a hand resting on a teacup across from me ... on better days)
Think this'll cur(at)e my so-called life?
I see a delivery driver on my neighbour's doorstep. She's feeling poorly, and I try valiantly to notify her that I can run down before ... too late. Still, I let my invitation land on her pocket monster. A brief repartee, a tidbit of empathy, the promise of a home-cooked meal at some undetermined hour. Dinner for 1 or even 2. Curated socializing. One day, one person.
new word of the day: de trop
"But talking that way now, when the whole internet is swollen with people talking like that, feels de trop." - Sean Nelson
Truly, I don't need to hear anymore, as Mr. Olbermann doesn't need to produce sound anymore.
And I don't need to respond to every drip.
