You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
The technological prison that binds us.
Our smart phones can liberate us, but do they make us smarter?
Social Media updates, email follow ups and web site morning blasts, what would your great grand pa think?
The more free we think we are, perhaps the more indentured we have become.
I can call my friend with the push of a button, but I don’t even know my friend’s number. Am I smarter or am I dumber?
Technology frees us, but also confines us, making us more reliant upon technology.
This thought process for me begins Sunday morning with a Butt Call from 7,000 miles away.
Technology allows us and the Google Gods to know where we are at every moment of every day. So how is it that a man’s ass can call me erroneously from the other side of the planet?
The call blares through Sunday morning at 5:22 am.
This is not the kind of booty call I’m looking for.
I lift a groggy eye lid and allow available darkness into my pupils. My brain is sad it has to even think through one eye hole this early on a Sunday morning.
I fumble for my phone on the night stand.
The iridescent screen is bright like the inside of a microwave oven cooking tin foil.
I squint, making out my friend’s name. Huh? He’s in Hong Kong on business, I think to myself.
I click answer thinking something must be awry if he’s calling me at 5:22 am.
“hello” My voice sounds like sandpaper.
I pause.
“Hello.”
There is no one on the other end, only the faint sound of someone moving around in the background. It sounds like a restaurant being broadcast though a beach towel and a sock.
“Hello? Hello?”
Nobody answers.
I look at my phone angrily. The caller is in Hong Kong, half a world away. That’s the cool part. Columbus would stand on the edge of the world and praise the Gods for a moment like this.
But there is always a ying to the proverbial yang and apparently the down side to this is a man’s ass is calling me. Yes, a man’s ass is dialing me from half a planet away. His ass is waking me up and making me listen to some muted moron order cat tacos and rice or some such thing.
“hello, hello hello”
No updates on how much money we owe China. No updates on what the harbor looks like from his 500th floor suite. No updates on what cat tastes like mixed with rice and soy sauce.
Nope. Just some muted ass.
I disconnect and try and go back to sleep but my mind is racing.
The more technologically advances, the more we are bound by our technology.
This blog is a perfect example. Andy Cordan Dot Com.
For 5 years I have maintained this web site. It was pretty simple. Log in and write like the damn wind.
It gives me a sense of satisfaction, a liberation that Guttenberg would never understand, and I’m not talking Steve.
But it also frustrates me.
Saturday I got a crazy notion and suddenly I’m in a sector of my own web site I should never go. It should say WARNING WILL ROBINSON, DANGER AHEAD. But on this day, I am in the tool box of my won web site and I am clicking buttons that say APPLY CHANGES.
ROH RUH!
You have undoubtedly noticed my pre-occupation with the art.
I was happy with my new creation, that is till I tried to sign in to my new creation and I could not find a LOG IN.
Five years and LOG IN was never an issue. Suddenly I’m walking through a technological labyrinth of mystery.
What button did I APPLY that said LOG IN will disappear forever. Where the hell is the LOG IN?
I like my new web site but apparently I have no way to access it. It’s like a Christmas present that you cannot unwrap. It’s like a pack of Trojans you never use. It’s like casino chip you never cash in.
So I spend hours trying every button the web site has. I right click and left click and I am frustrated. I want to throw my computer through the TV before me. What a waste of a Saturday I think to myself.
So I text my sister in L.A. and she dislikes the new web site for a variety of reasons not necessarily relevant to this blog entry.
She says try going through a host web site to recapture the log in feature for Andy Cordan Dot Com.
WTF? is she talking about Oh My God!
It’s technology. It’s suppose to make my life easier. It’s making me crazy. It’s like learning Chinese on your lunch break.
I want to create, to write to dream. And now I am slowly scrolling my cursor over invisible codes of text that don’t exist and don’t illuminate. I am frustrated like a butt call from Beijing with nobody on the other end of the line.
I am in a technological prison. I am confined by bars I cannot see.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the ability to write in Nashville and have my friend read about his butt call to me in Hong Kong.
I’m just saying. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.
Sometimes my smart phone ain’t so smart.
Sometimes old school is the only school.
Next time you LOG IN, think about that.
Next time your ass calls someone by accident or you text the wrong person and accidentally say something you should have never said, then you’ll know technology is a tool.
Like any tool if used improperly it can cause you pain.
And that’s crazy.™