I must confess, life under the rock is quite comfortable. Another story in this week’s IJN begins, “Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve likely scrolled through TikTok at least once. The social media app . . . has over 689 million users . . . ”
Actually, I’ve never scrolled through TikTok at least once. I certainly believe it, however, when I’m told that virtually everyone else — not living under a rock — has. How do I know? Easy. I’m stopped at a red light watching a guy trying to unlock his bicycle. It’s not such a hard thing to do. He can’t do it in one smooth motion, however. He has to interrupt himself — between grabbing the key and putting it in the lock — to look at his phone. He’s all tangled up, one hand balancing the phone, the other looking for the lock. I’m watching a guy climb out of the swimming pool after swimming laps. He can’t stand up before he checks his phone. His body is dripping, his other leg is still half in the water, and he’s got to check his phone. For that matter, I watch other exercisers trying to work their body to the maximum on the treadmill while somehow jimmying their hands to get their phone straight so they can check it out in the middle of the run. On the bus? Check the phone. In line at the grocery? Check the phone. Halfway into the doctor’s office? Get that last look at the phone before the door closes. A few minutes without the phone, an unbearable loss. Like, who’s in charge? The human being — or the phone?
Yes, it is quite comfortable here, living under the rock. I have no shackles on my hands, like the prisoners dragged from the jail to the courtroom. The latest rage, or outrage, on social media does not tug at me. Horror of horrors: I do not check email at night. When I leave the office, admittedly probably later than others, I turn off the computer and have no connection at home. I can enter a different world, uncluttered, with a certain freedom of mind. I can open a volume of Talmud; its sweetness awaits. I can talk to my wife and my kids (via phone, in faraway places). I can visit a friend. I can stop. Can think. Can take in the beautiful shapes of many of the trees that line the streets I drive down to get home. I can glance out the window and see the guy tethered to his phone as he struggles to unlock his bike. Not to mention, at red lights I can glance at the driver in the car parallel to mine, and nine times out of 10 the driver is glued to a phone. Somehow, I don’t sense much joy in living on top of the rock.
I can’t say for sure, since I’m not living there, but I wonder what the on-top-of-the-rock life creates. I mean, one cannot be oneself without needing to tell it to others or needing to be told what it is that others are doing or thinking. Is there a human self that can exist without time for solitude, I mean, even a few minutes of it? More devices, more time-saving — and less time.
I must confess, truth compels the counter-observation that in ancient, pre-rock times, when people lived without personal phones and other gadgets, it was also possible to obsess with what I needed to tell others or hear what others needed to tell me. Back in ancient history, however, thousands of pictures did not interrupt each personal foray, nor did snippets from celebrities, threats by politicians, inspiring words by adepts, annoying pop-ups, crudities from certain entertainers and sports figures or news that turned old in minutes. The oddest thing is that the more images and words we see, and the faster we see them, the less we seem to know. The more binary our world becomes. We know two things about Thomas Jefferson, he wrote the Declaration of Independence and he was a slaveholder. That’s it. Israel is Jewish, and Israel is an oppressor. That’s it. Whites have power, and privilege. End of story. America began in 1619, not 1776. Right. The more we know, the less we think. Increased images, decreased clarity. More media, less breadth of exposure.
Very strange life, this life on top of the rock.
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