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Most people live under intense moral pressure — only they can never identify the source of that pressure; so they feel vaguely guilty.
One of the devastating consequences of contemporary technology is the feeing of being constantly surveilled. A hundred years ago, that sense of surveillance may have come from the members of one’s village or town — it may have come from religious belief, the sense that God is watching — but it was not an unassailable material fact. In 2018 it is. We carry phones that watch us, record us, manipulate us. Pure and simple. We voluntarily put ourselves under guard.
You see people clutching there phones on the morning commute — as if they were magic wands or talismans that could ward of the devil. What I observe, is that even when a device isn’t being used, it still must be held close. The palm of the hand is sensitive to the text buzz, or the notification buzz — our hand, that exquisite organ, can tell us, better than our ears, when the internet is calling (and it calls all the time).
I spent this weekend at a friend’s house upstate, on twenty-six acres of woods; except for one tiny corner of the house, I had no cell service. I came back to New York yesterday with a weird sense of renewed strength; a sense of strength that I didn’t even intentionally cultivate. Is it that easy? Is our being basically ready at all times to disconnect? Is it telling us all the time to disconnect? I’m prone to think yes; our tortured cognitive apparatus wants to rest — and we don’t let it. (Disclosure: I don’t have a smartphone — I have a flip-phone… and I still feel like I need a break)
