I Need Some Time Alone
Posted on | January 19, 2012 | 4 Comments
I think future generations will not know how to be alone*.
I’m relatively certain that’s a rare enough skill now but, next time you’re out for a drink, keep an eye on any pair of people in the pub. When one leaves to use the bathroom or queue for a pint, the person left behind immediately pulls out a smart-phone and reads emails or news or declares themselves mayor of Shitsville on Foursquare or something (I don’t know how Foursquare works). The same obviously holds for those individuals waiting for someone.
I’ve caught myself doing it and, while I’m ok with this occasionally, I’m actually forcing myself not to do it all the time. In the days before smart phones, I was ok with sitting quietly, watching the world go by, thinking, plotting, etc. I don’t want that to change.
I’m not some crazy, torch-wielding, luddite, by the way. I don’t think we should ban all iPhones in pubs and Tea Shoppes and opium dens and whatnot. I just think it’s pleasant—and actually useful—to be alone sometimes.
Listen to your thoughts. Cultivate your alone time, people. Your brain doesn’t need to be crammed with input every single second. Take a few to process what’s already in there. It’s a good thing.
*They also won’t know how to read a map, just looking for that blue, you-are-here, GPS dot or listening to Brian Blessed bellow instructions from the Celebrity Voice add-on of their sat-nav.
Comments
Gerry Hayes
I mostly sit around all day and drink tea. Occasionally, I write stuff and send it to strangers so they can humiliate me and deride my efforts. Other than the self-harm to dull the shame of failure, it's not a bad life. Like I say, there's tea.
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I do know what you mean. It’s the airport queues where I needlessly pull out the fancy phone to check something that does not need checking.
Sometimes, though, I am composing a post on my phone.
It’s probably more excusable in airports to help prevent breakdowns and psychotic incidents at the inexorable tedium of the places.
Unless that’s just me.
No, not just you … i have had my boredom induced psychotic incidents. In airports. Mostly.
“Mostly.”
Telling. ;-)