and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

Went to a BBQ tonight at my friends house. Makes me immensly pleased when I do something like BBQ in the city. Nice to know semi-normal lives can be lead in the city...

But unfortunately we got into a debate. Isn't that what happens at BBQs? It's all friends and fun so people start to let their guard down. The food makes them a little sleepy and the beer makes 'em a little boisterous and the dangerous combination leads to a Bush/Kerry rumble or a flat tax debate or a which-webmail-is-better battle. This debate was none of those, thank god, but I don't think it was really any better. It was the technology debate. It was, *sigh*, the cell phone debate.

"I derno," I said, "the cell phone is nice and all but I hate being so connected. I hate being sewn into society like that."

"Yah, but you can turn it off.." someone replied.

"Yes, but that's just the point. I don't want to - out of politeness."

"That's not impolite at all." someone insisted.

I talked about how shutting one's phone off was really just an extension of what caller id is and caller id is really what the answering machine did a long time ago and the answering machine was really a rudimentary way of screening calls, right? Sure, it had other purposes like leaving a message.. but in the end we are talking about avoiding people.

"So, if I left a message and you never called me back - even though I said hey, it's mike, I need you to give me a call back, it's really important - is that rude," I asked.

"Well, yah if they know you but that's different than.." they rambled till I was able to cut them off.

"That's just it.. there really is no difference. Step back, far enough from the specifics here - farther away than cell phones and email - farther away from rotary dial - farther than even the car.. get away from the technology of the thing - I'm talking social technology" I insisted.

"No, but people will learn after awhile that you don't have your cell phone on during the day and that will be fine." they exclaimed, exasperated.

"NO!" I yelled, "You're completely missing the point! I'm drawing a connection between ignoring a call, not returning a message, turning your phone off - with the idea of someone coming to your house, seeing you through the screen door washing your dishes, and you completely ignoring them as if they weren't talking to you ten feet away - is that rude?!."

"I don't feel like that is a very valid comparison," they complained.

They couldn't see the angle I was coming from. They didn't realize the degradation of our social fabric. They saw these tools, this technology, as a way to connect people when in fact it hasn't been connecting us at all. It's been disconnecting us. We're growing in numbers every second of every day. We're living in larger groups, millions of people crammed into cities, but are we socially any closer?

Ask anyone you know about small towns - real small towns - and everyone will tell you about their experience growing up or how they had a cousin in a place that wasn't even a town, it was a union - and they all tell stories about the man down the street, the crazy neighbour, the old mild delivery man, the pastor, the police chief, the banker.. they'll tell you stories as if these people were people.

Ask anyone you know about big cities - ask about people's neighbours. Ask who lives across the hall. Ask what they do for a living or where their parents live or..

Sure, it's a lot to handle. Bigger city, more people, you only have so much to fit in your head.. but I'm not talking about fitting more people in your head, I'm just talking about giving the people who are already in your head real space. Giving the people you interact with in your life actual meaning, as if they were an actual person.

I'm talking about giving people their identity back.

"Technology is making us more interconnected!" someone piped up as if that weren't the most obvious answer you could retort.

"Yes, maybe it connects each little world we live in - for, truly, we all live in our own little worlds - but those worlds are drifting farther and farther apart. We're all tiny space ships floating around in space and, although we can speak with one another, it is taking longer and longer to actually reach people."

Our spaceships are drifting along dimensions we can't see, maybe the 23rd dimension in string theory (joke) or something, I don't know - one so small that it's as if it's wrapped in on itself and we have no perception, no reality of that dimension.. we can't see ourselves moving, drifting, floating apart because we can only see how much more wired we are to one another."

So I don't want to turn off my cell phone out of respect for everyone - anyone - who might call it. I, by purchasing and using a cellphone, am taking on a responsibility with that phone, as I did when I got my first email account and started replying to my friend's emails because I respect that they are real, live, human beings, and I don't want to take that away from them - or me. I don't want to drift farther in on myself. I don't want to be so wired, so connected, so inundated with technology that all I see in the world is me, me, me, what do I want?

I dunno. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm seeing it all from an upside down angle. Maybe I've twisted my dimensions on themselves and I don't see how amazing it is that people are using this technology to "bring people together". You see, this isn't a rant on technology.. technology is coming ready-or-not. Technology won't stop to let us cross the street, it will plow us right over.. but technology is not who I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about you. I'm talking about people. I'm talking about individual persons and I'm talking about the responsibility we have to use technology wisely or become a race of horrid horrid overly self-indulgent ingrown-mindfucks.

And that is all, frankly.