An Anesthetic Default
I have this problem.
When I get home from work, I sit down on my couch and open my laptop. When I’m waiting for the next bus, I pull out my iPhone.
Then there’s the unconscious ritual: email, RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr—maybe even Reddit if I’m not paying attention.
It’s not that I don’t do things. I do lots of things! But this is my default mode, my idle mode. The sink on the state machine graph. Some other force has to wrest me out of it.
What’s worse, in this mode, I’ll put off anything I see that might take thought. Hard email? Leave it. Long blog post? Send it to Instapaper. But yay, hooray: funny tweet, clever picture, keep it going, friendly email, don’t make me think.
How do I wish I idled? I’m not certain, but on a recent road trip, I realized to great alarm that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d pondered. Sure, I’d spend hours mulling problems I’d encountered in classes or life, but every thought was reactionary.
I hadn’t had a conversation with myself, found new questions to ask, really introspected.
No, I’m not condemning ubiquitous internet connections or Twitter or kids these days. It’s not about that. We used to blame TV for this, right? It’s not even always media: at school, I’d fill every spare hour with idle conversation. Sure, we need to have fun, and sure, some chats were enlightening, but since I was always surrounded by people, I spent absolutely no time inside my head.
Now I’m living alone for the first time in, well, ever. It feels utterly strange, and I have this primal urge to numb myself to the apartment’s stillness with lights, voices, stuff. I feel like I’m floating at the surface of this anesthetic sea, bobbing occasionally above for a breath of awareness.
So I’ve spent a lot of time recently with my eyes closed. I’m trying to keep the damn phone in my pocket. And you know what? It feels great.
