Somewhere in the past year I lost the will to write, the discipline to sit alone and let words roll down onto a lined, white steno pad page. This is not entirely true and I have had a few exceptions to this trend, but in general this thing—writing—that has brought me such joy and therapeutic pleasure has diminished. Maybe my “dark night of the soul” that lead me to write so profusely has concluded and I no longer need it. Maybe the aging process is creeping over into writing, and just as so many things diminish as the sun starts to set on our lives, maybe my writing is diminishing as well.
During the past year I got an electronic tablet and the truth is that I now fritter so much more time away checking Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and the Internet that used to be devoted to other things like writing. So yes, I'd say Nicholas Carr was right: Google is making me stupid, another creative analog native neutered by the digital age. Despite the self-hatred and loathing that comes after I've sat and stared into the blue glow for an hour or two, not unlike Plato's shadowy cave, I seem unable to stop myself. I write on steno pads to fight the power of the digital device, to tell the tablet it doesn't own me. When I use the wire-bound steno pad, Facebook and Twitter are not a click away, tempting me to abandon the creative process and go passive. Gmail does not hijack my train of thought, making me anxious because their might be, although extremely unlikely, an important email in the midst of all of those solicitations and offers that for some reason now unbeknownst to me now I actually signed up for, probably because it was much easier just to click the “I agree” check box than to actually read a legal disclaimer.
I still do not own a smart phone, but the electronic tablet has already accelerated the natural complacency that sets in when one becomes a man of a certain age. I fear if I get a smart phone, I will become like everyone else: tame, passive, oblivious to the world around them, fixated on the little digital device while interesting people and sunsets and glorious nature pass by without notice. When I show people my flip-styled cell phone, they always make me feel as if I am missing something, that somehow the real world is passing me by. I don't think it is. Maybe I' m crazy, but I don't need to know everything at the moment it happens. I don't want to be accessible 24x7. I don't need an answer to every question I have at the moment I think of it. I don't need to see the current status of every friend I've ever known. It's all too much for me to bear. I am just one guy who likes to sit and look out of the window on a rainy day, or step outside at the morning daybreak, breathe in the morning air while I pick up the newspaper, just as I have been doing for forty years. A smart phone would make me feel as if I am always falling behind and need to gaze at the little god in my hand. A smart phone is a jealous lover who demands your attention. And it looks like to me like she gets attention from her lovers, and when that happens, everyone else gets much less.
Please don't tell my tablet you heard me talking about a smart phone!