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Several months back our family made the decision to discontinue traditional telephone service and rely strictly on our cell phones for outside communication. The switch has been mostly comfortable except for the absence of a telephone answering system whose flashing light had become a beacon I watched out for to let me know I had missed a call. Holding onto my habits I have a wooden cradle I place the cell phone in when I am home but I cannot get into the habit of picking the phone up periodically to see if I have missed a call when I was out of earshot. Now, I know the idea with a cell phone is to keep the blessed thing with you most of the time but that seems a bit ridiculous to me. I am obviously a man caught in a generational tug of war with a piece of technology which is both a welcome addition to everyday life and an obstacle to the Zen attained when one is out of touch and alone with one’s thoughts.
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I have observed younger people who find it perfectly natural to be reachable at any given moment. I have seen them ignore the lure of their ringing phone when engaged in an activity they deem to be more important. I think one way they do this is by using their phones for communication that is mostly of low importance. In this way the ringing phone becomes absolutely ignorable because there is a very good chance that the call being missed would not be about anything earth shattering to begin with. In short they have lowered the importance level of communicating simply by staying so closely in touch.
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On the other end of the spectrum is my step grandmother whose landline home phone is still reachable by punching the same 7 numbers as when I was 7 years old. As for me, I think I just figured out how to have the cell phone beep every fifteen minutes after someone leaves a message.
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Problem Solved?
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