I Tweet, Therefore I Am

People are never without their phones these days and they are ready to answer a call at anytime. No activity is spared - driving, jogging, eating, and even the toilet. You would think that nature's call would take precedence, but, no. I have actually known people who have lost their phones in the bathroom. In fact, I can readily imagine the following.

'Hey', says the person next to me. I am startled. There are many perfectly good places for exchanging pleasantries with strangers, but a public toilet is not one of them. Thankfully, he is not addressing me. He is speaking to someone on his cell phone which he holds balanced between his ear and his shoulder, a tricky operation at best even under normal circumstances. Sure enough, all it takes is the loud noise of flushing in one of the stalls and he shakes his head ever so little in reaction. The phone falls from its precarious perch, right into, you guessed it, the urinal. I depart the scene quickly stifling a laugh to avoid rubbing salt on his wound.

Now some of you are no doubt shaking your heads in disbelief. 'That can never happen. Who does not have bluetooth these days?', you ask. But my point pertains to a larger question. How did the phone become an extension of the human being? We find it irresistible to check the message as soon as the phone chimes. After all, what good is instant messaging if we don't? With all the means of instant communication, we are far more interruptible now than ever before. This also makes it impossible to leave work behind when we leave the office. As long as you are tied to the cell phone, 'you can run, but you can't hide'.

A modern day Descartes may well exclaim, 'I tweet, therefore I am'. Some have actually embraced this idea. Whether or not  their hearts are beating is measured by how often they are 'tweeting'. So to re-affirm their continued existence, they are constantly tweeting. And, the larger the number of followers one has, the more validated one's existence is.

I guess celebrities and politicians have a particular need to remain in the public eye, but some of them are also afflicted with the 'foot-in-the-mouth' disease. Twitter has been the bane of a few of them. They will be wise to remember the old saying 'Look before you leap' or should I say, 'Think before you tweet'? Instead, it is 'Tweet now, retract later'. Apart from their trigger-happy tweets that give offense to some group or other every now and then, there is the indiscreet message or compromising picture that is somehow leaked, creating a media storm.

The constant online chatter that goes on may make one believe that people are communicating more nowadays. I think this is true in a general sense. If you must depend on face-to-face meeting, a phone call, or a letter to get in touch with others, you can only reach so many people whereas with a single tweet you could reach thousands. Yet I wonder how much real communication goes on in these online networks. It is estimated that more than 90% of all email is spam. And quite a lot of tweets and emails are merely forwarding something one received. The same messages keep circulating the net.  We can say a lot of things to a lot of people but still convey very little. As the old song goes, 'Everybody's talkin' at me, I don't hear a word they're saying'.

Technology makes it possible to feel connected at all times and places. Being addicted to this technology, we find it quite difficult to unplug and just be with ourselves. Only the most determined among us may be able to find some 'alone' time (I am sure there will be an app for that soon). That is assuming that people want to be alone. Perhaps, they actually dread that, and they like to feel they have company, even if it is virtual. But solitude is truly rewarding. I try to find some time every day to be by myself. I like to lounge in my backyard early in the morning or at dusk. Dusk is a particularly tranquil time as the entire world seems to become quiescent. The other day, just after sunset, I sat lazily watching the clearest of skies become a perfect bubble. While it was still too bright for stars to be seen, the thin crescent moon looked like a little notch in the otherwise flawless fabric of the sky. I just gazed at the sky and felt rejuvenated in the peace that ensued.

Solitude is necessary for our minds to reflect and to recharge. The mind turns quite passive with the constant flood of information that bombards us and needs the break to bounce back. Many creative pursuits require the mind to be dynamic and focussed, without disturbance. We get to connect with our inner selves when we are alone. It is an opportunity to take a look at ourselves and perhaps gain some new insight, or self-awareness; to become more comfortable with who we are. I believe this will make us more self-sufficient in the long run. Solitude, in short, is good for the soul.

"Learn to be happy alone. If you do not enjoy your own company, why inflict it on others" - Swami Chinmayananda