Last week my cell phone crashed. As I stared at the blank screen, I was seized with an unreasonable panic. I was in the middle of nowhere, and there my phone screen just died. I couldn’t dial for help even if I wanted to. A cold helplessness seized me. A helplessness that couldn’t take me anywhere and wouldn’t let me do anything.
As I stood paralysed with inability, it dawned on me how we panic even for situations that don’t matter, and how it is sometimes a relief to break away from it all.
The immediate reaction in such a situation is ‘Oh no I have lost all my numbers, How do I contact my friends?’ At that point it didn’t matter to me that I had gone months without speaking to most of them. I imagine what was reassuring for me was that just having their contact numbers residing in my directory meant the same to me as keeping in touch with them.
Randomly generated numbers were symbolic of my friends and of the imaginary well-meaning conversations I meant to have with each of them.
I did not call a lot of those numbers. Ever. Sometimes, even if I felt like it, I postponed the calling bit. If I felt extremely bad for being out of contact for so long, I would send an SMS. A ploy I resorted to, pretty often. My way of alleviating the guilt. Sometimes I wouldn’t even do that.
As I stood alone, in the dark alley, with a dead phone in my hand, I wondered if I really cared about the 400 odd names in my phone directory. How did it affect me? Would it really bother me if I never got to speak to them for the rest of my life? The honest answer was ’No’. Sure a handful of the numbers were important, but beyond that I truly did not care.
If I came across those lost people, I would still enjoy a beer with them, but their absence would not leave a scratch, let alone a void in my life. So why was I panicking about losing the numbers? Actually somewhere deep down, I was thankful that I had lost them.
I know that I will meet these lost contacts at some party or the other, and there they and some more lost acquaintances would out of politeness infiltrate their way back to my contact list and make it a robust 500. But frankly, now I am liking the way my contact list looks.
I have sent a half-hearted attempt on both Facebook and GTalk to retrieve the numbers, but thankfully not too many people have responded. Reflects, that how in our attempts to be clued in, we are actually pretty clued out. Or maybe they don’t like me enough. Whatever the reason, it is peaceful being left alone and not being reminded that there are a zillion people out there to say ‘Hi’ to.
The necessity of being left alone is compelling and at the same time repelling. At the moment it is simply peaceful.
[...] The Sound of Silence « Decidedly Homophobic I have sent a half-hearted attempt on both Facebook and GTalk to retrieve the numbers, but thankfully not too many people have responded. Reflects, that how in our attempts to be clued in, we are actually pretty clued out. Or maybe they don’t like me enough. Whatever the reason, it is peaceful being left alone and not being reminded that there are a zillion people out there to say ‘Hi’ to. The necessity of being left alone is compelling and at the same time repelling. At the moment it is simply peaceful. (tags: communication society socialnetworking networking friends friendship relationships) [...]