In the unknowingly wise words of Forrest Gump, "you can tell a lot about someone by looking at their shoes. Where they've gone, where they've been." Unfortunately in this day and age we all, myself included, live too fast to take into consideration why people are they way they are, why they act the way they do. Their experiences, their past, their present. I guess you could just say why should you care, but what does that solve? Only the now. We are all to some extent self-indulged and in a hurry to gain immediate results and forget about the joy of what patience brings. (This rant has absolutely nothing to do with shoes however, but should you follow hopefully my point will become clear.)
Take communication for example. I can remember ten years ago if someone had a cell-phone, they needed a suitcase to carry it with them (the ever popular Zach Morris phone). Only drug dealers and doctors had pagers, so I guess that had somewhat of an appeal, but you still had to use a landline to return the page. We blinked, a few years passed and now there's smaller, more convenient cell phones, PDAs, iPhones, etc. Cellular towers rose up like Petey Pablo, capitalistic competition was here and everyone was on the move. Seriously, next time you're out and about, take a look around and three out of four young adults, five out of every ten adults are either calling or texting someone. Almost overnight our country had turned from a "business sealed with a handshake" principle to a "my people will get ahold of your people, if I don't send you a text, email, or twitter first" fallacy. And we wonder why interpersonal communication has died. We substituted togetherness for instantaneousness, cohesiveness and complacency for spontaneity. I admit, I'm almost as guilty as the next person, but that still doesn't make it right.
Don't get me wrong, technology is a beautiful thing. Without it I would not be writing this, you all (the few of you) would not be reading this, and the laptop that I love so dearly would not exist. I would however get my left arm back due to removing the growth that is my cell-phone from it, but truly life would go on. Honestly, how liberating is it, either purposely or accidentally, to not be able to be reached? To not have a computer nearby winking at you like the young floozy at the other end of the bar, enticing you, pulling you in. To not feel tempted to get on myspace/facebook or text someone. To drive and not call a friend, just lose yourself in the confines of your car; only you and your music.
A very good friend of mine quite frequently shuts off her phone just to get away, even for weeks at a time. Another doesn't even use hers for talking; she literally has a "crackberry" and is addicted to facebook. This doesn't make either one of them wrong or right, bad or good. It just goes to show the extremes of what I am speaking of. If only there were a balance that we could all achieve. Picture a perfect world where we don't have to be reminded not once, but twice to silence our phones in a movie theatre. Where church services begin by saying "Welcome everyone, please stand and greet the ones around you" instead of "Hello, please remember to silence your cellular devices, for we are in a place of prayer." I'm not making this shit up; I've experienced both in the past week.
I suppose I may be on a soap-box pointing fingers, but if experts are correct and eighty percent of communication is in fact nonverbal, then in our rushed lives what are we really communicating? To whom are we speaking? To drones I would think. Once again I will not deny that I am as guilty as most but I have recently grown sick and tired of people and their preoccupied voices, emotionless texts, and one-line status twitters. I've become extremely frustrated with having the question of "how are you?" in passing never meriting a response. Since when did that become the new "hello"?
As I sit in a Seattle coffee shop, looking out the window at the hustle and bustle, at the people scrambling in the rain I can't help but wonder, how can we understand the people around us if we don't take the time out of our own busy lives to actually and honestly communicate, not just pull the information we need and bail. If our society could just slow down a bit, pump the brakes and smile at someone. Maybe shake a hand and introduce themselves; take a look at each other's shoes from time to time. See where people have gone, where they've been. Maybe we might learn something that we never sought out to find. Isn't that what life is all about anyway, helping people? Service to others? In the famous words of John F. Kennedy, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Not taken literally and butchered a bit, in so many words what I'm trying to convey is may we all lose a little selfishness and ask not first what we can benefit from a situation, but what we may be able to provide. If we don't, just think, at the rate we're going we might blink again and who knows where we’ll be. We must do more learning; become human sponges instead of leeches. Pay attention to a conversation. Listen more, speak less. Slow down and enjoy the beautiful scenery that we all share as well as the people in it. Ultimately we're all we have.
Take care all. Until next time...
-Brian Z
