Hasty and Superficial Rhythm

Turn your head in any direction and you’ll see half a dozen people pushing buttons on a smartphone, round a corner and bump into three others tense with passive-aggressive phone whining, while everyone else is walking and texting. Don’t let’s even look at what the adjacent drivers are doing with their phones. Meanwhile, up in the rarified air of executive boardrooms Apple is besieged by complaints about the new iPhone 5 at the same time that the Samsung Galaxy S111 gathers accolades and market share. And while these two companies taunt, bicker and sue over what is in the long run really only money, twentieth-century diarist, Anaïs Nin, who would not have known what a smartphone is mumbles in her grave.

“The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow. ...This thought has made me more and more attentive to all encounters, meetings, introductions, which might contain the seed of depth that might be carelessly overlooked.

“This feeling has become a rarity, and rarer every day now that we have reached a hastier and more superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people, more countries. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us. The dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephones, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision.” — The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4, May 1946

Take a Message, Siri

Excitement running high on Saturday. Funny how a small gadget that fits in the palm of the hand has the juice to send a happy buzz whizzing up the arm and down through the toes. Until very recently there was a most uncommon man who was inarguably the best at generating this kind of excitement all around the world. The death of Steve Jobs saddened millions of people, and no one would wish to make light of his passing, but talk about leaving with a bang…Nine days later Apple releases the incredible iPhone 4S, sending the company stock soaring even higher and fans in seven countries swarming to buy one. You gotta think he’s looking down with a pleased smile.

So what about that iPhone 4S, the one that talks to you, works anywhere in the world, takes 8 megapixel photographs, syncs your mail, photos, music, calendars, contacts and bookmarks wirelessly with desktop, laptop and iPad? For about five years I’ve used an iPhone, an old Japanese iPhone 2, which for the last eighteen months has been unable to make calls, but has continued to send and receive email, run all the apps unrelated to calling and take excellent 3 megapixel photographs. Had my ups and downs with it, mostly when I was using it as a telephone and never quite felt the jolt of excitement experienced with other Apple products. That old phone, the one that took the photograph below is a clunky old Ford Pinto with rust spots compared to the iPhone 4S.

It’s no secret that for the past six months telephone trouble has been an almost daily headache with the unsmart, flip-top Sanyo clunker I’ve been carrying. The hardware, the chip, the magic, whatever was or wasn’t inside its dull case made it a semi-dependable device at best. Basic telephone calls have been an ongoing challenge with this giveaway phone from Sprint. With all that, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that on Thursday I began thinking about an iPhone 4S. Long lines, people camping out in front of Apple Stores, reservations required, delivery promises; I figured that the day before its release was much like going to the party way late. Still, I drove over to Best Buy at noon on Thursday, made a reservation and paid a $50 deposit. The store rep said that I would be notified by email later in the day stating whether I could have the phone on Friday, or at most no later than the end of the month. It all depended on how many Sprint iPhones they would get late Thursday, and how many people were ahead of me. I figured the end of the month would be the earliest.

At 2:00 on Friday I got a call saying my Sprint iPhone 4S was ready for pick up.

Got the phone, along with a free invisibleSHIELD™ and a free set of earphones for hands-free talking, and by 3:00 was walking out of Best Buy telling the iPhone to call B. Oh, yeah, it follows spoken orders! Something called Siri. The worst part about the day was getting home with the new iPhone and short of time, having to put it in my pocket and join some friends for dinner. With every bite the thought uppermost in my mind was getting back home to snuggle up with the new phone and learn its magical secrets.

The photo above was taken with the old iPhone and the one below with the new iPhone 4S. Almost embarrassed to admit it, but the new phone has me doing something I’ve never done before—been sending text messages to friends, typing out stuff like ‘4S-2G2BT’—iPhone 4S, too good to be true.

Plug In, Tune Out

Isn’t the idea of a vacation or holiday to set aside a period of time, whether a weekend in the mountains or three weeks in the Greek Isles, for relaxing, breaking routines and turning your back on pressures? Roll those things together and it will likely spell something along the lines of TEMPORARY DISCONNECT. By all that’s logical the goal should be refreshment, renewal, a charging of the batteries and at the same time an emptying out of stressful thoughts. And for those who don’t try to squeeze too much into a holiday, the return to home, work and daily customs is more often than not accomplished with a renewed feeling of energy and optimism. The time away has served the very purpose it was designed for.

That’s not the scenario these days when staying connected supersedes just about every other priority. At this time of summer carloads of people arrive weekly to spend some days on the beach here in Florida—to swim, surf, fish, build sandcastles, to walk or lay about on the beach. Every day is an almost endless vista of blue-green ocean, white sand and clear skies; a setting famous for natural scenery, sea turtle nesting sights and endless flights of soaring pelicans. All that and a good percentage of the holidaymakers spend their time here plugged in to cell phones, iPods and laptops. There seems to be a fear of being disconnected, however briefly, a need to escape the present moment or reality, to get back online with distant friends and workmates.

Walking on the beach each day I pass dozens of people lost in either a phone call or text message—eyes glazed, steps unseeing and the world around them invisible. They are connected to someone or something not a part of the present moment beyond the 2.5 inch screen of a cell phone. An equal number disconnect themselves from the sound of tumbling surf, the bird calls and laughter of people at play by plugging their ears with a custom made soundtrack from their iPod.

Sadly, those who most abuse the modern convenience of cell phones and anytime-anywhere connectivity are the teenagers. Under pretense of taking a survey I asked a young lady by the pool how often she used her tightly clutched cell phone. She said that she was twelve years old and that she never ever put her phone down, but probably sent no more than twenty-five texts in one day. Another—a young fella around fourteen or fifteen has walked past my patio several times each day for the past week, heading for the beach, always eyes down, always texting. And yes, we do have bosses on vacation walking around with a Bluetooth gadget in the ear talking and gesturing like lunatics to invisible employees.

Aloneness, isolation, out of touch, disconnected—are these perhaps the new fear and trembling of our society?

Good & Bad

Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the trouble. For those of us who give little thought to phones of any kind, an entire day devoted to the mysterious ills of a cell phone raises questions about necessity and increasing dependance. When I finally broke down and bought a mobile phone I was already years behind. The disbelieving looks when telling people I didn’t have a cell phone were by then an ordinary part of the day. Of course, the day came when like everyone else I did have a cell phone in my pocket and little by little I learned about a new brand of dependance. At this point, it’s second nature and the phone goes in my pocket automatically when I grab up the keys and leave home.

Frustrated now because a full day has been squandered on attempts to solve a ‘no service’ problem. Cut off in the middle of a call last night, suddenly a message appeared informing me of no service. No big deal, I thought; it will correct itself. Yeah, right. Two hours on another telephone talking to three different tech support reps this morning, a forty minute drive to the store where I bought the phone produced no results, no fix; another thirty minutes in the car hunting down the service provider’s office and finding no solution there. But hey, the man says if I get in the car and drive another thirty minutes over to Dunlawton they can probably fix it there, but no guarantees. I'm close to dropping the ornery thing in the trash and having done with it.

That was the bad part.

With day long frustration over a broken palm-sized gadget, a change of pace was in order. Things usually improve once you’re home and comfortable in a cushy chair, an icy jolt of spirits at hand and some cheery lines to look over. In a notebook next to the cushy chair are some newly jotted quotes from the long running television show, The Simpsons. Never seen it more than a time or two, but I read somes quotes this morning that hit the spot…

• Homer Simpson on his aspirations, “All my life I’ve had one dream—to achieve my many goals.”

• About responsibility, “You can’t keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on.

• On survival: “Three sentences will get you through life. One, ‘Cover for me.’ Two, ‘Good idea, Boss.’ And three, ‘It was like that when I got here.’”
• Talking about marriage, his wife Marge asks, “Homer, is this the way you pictured married life?” Homer ponders a moment and answers, “Pretty much. Except we drove around in a van solving mysteries.”

A short time later the gritty hours of frustration sort of rolled away looking at a quotation from William Blake. Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” (1863) is a long poem of 132 lines, but the opening four lines are a familiar balm to many…

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palms of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

Words good for clearing the head.

And finally, one more well written thought…

“Is there anything more beautiful in the world than to sit before an open window and enjoy nature, to listen to the birds singing, feel the sun on your cheeks and have a darling boy in your arms?” —Anne Frank, spring 1944.

iReview

Some excitement in the air these days with release of the new iPhone 4. Despite my usual enthusiasm for things Apple, this one is not on my shopping list. The video introducing it makes it look with all its new features like something close to the Holy Grail, but I want to turn back the pages and focus for a minute on the older iPhone.

Funny how an iPhone loses its telephoning capabilities and somehow seems better. I have an iPhone from Japan that doesn’t work outside of that country unless you want to pay peak time overseas charges. I don’t want to pay, so shut off my service in April. The phone belongs to me, so naturally it moved to Florida, too.

The iPhone 3G came to Japan on July 11, 2008. Hard to be exact, but I bought it around the end of that month. Then, a month later, the fascination with its flashy bells and whistles faded into the background. Ninety percent of the available apps held little interest for me, the Internet connection was too slow and too small, text messaging I don’t do, and the actual telephone technology was inferior to my Japanese cell phone. In that way, my praise and raves turned to moans and gripes.

I stayed with the iPhone for a couple of reasons: I love the email, and I’m nuts about the camera. These two features are strong on their own, but put them together and the mix is dynamite. I might feel differently if I had better camera equipment apart from the iPhone, but my camera-camera is a little troublesome and takes only okay photos.

The iPhone’s 2.0 megapixel camera impressed me from the beginning, and good photographs are not that elusive with a little practice. There are times when I feel like the camera has an intuitive eye and pulls my focus into a better frame, more interesting composition. No special bag of photo tricks or aptitude in my photography, and the iPhone photos surprise me more often than not. More than once I’ve looked at the result and wondered, “Wow! Did I take that picture?”

But that’s not the end. With the iPhone’s super email features, a good photo can be on your Mac desktop in minutes, and there’s small limit to what you can do there with iPhoto and Photoshop to make a good snap better.

These two features, email and camera have been a blessing for me in terms of getting photos quickly for use in this blog. From early on, the iPhone became more important for this than any of its other capabilities. It wasn’t until a year or so after getting the phone that I learned it wouldn’t be compatible with AT&T because of a different architecture built in to accommodate the Japanese system, which actually IS a 3rd generation architecture. Disappointing, but not enough to make me abandon the phone. The telephone part of the device may not work in the US, but the WI-FI works like a dream and makes having the phone an advantage.

The flower photo above is an example of a quick snapshot I took on the street. No Photoshop fine tuning in the picture. I clicked the shutter and got what you see here.

More From the Pages of Whatever

I have a very scratchy pet peeve. Unfortunately, being powerless to make it go away brings neither resignation nor consolation. Fact of life in the present digital age, this gripe of mine isn’t going to go away. Like it or lump it, as the old adage goes.

Cell phones today are as common as traffic jams, and to my way of thinking just as likely to annoy. Everyone everywhere has a cell phone, and my guess is, half of those phones are in use for several hours of every day. The impression is that most people here in Japan spend much more time texting, or browsing websites than they do talking on their phones. Well then, is that so annoying? Let me paint a picture…

You’re walking on a sidewalk in a busy part of town at a time when crowds are likely to be the norm. Not much room between you and others in the flow of people on all sides. It’s pretty much a stop-start-sidestep-backstep bump and halt kind of progress while you do your best not to bang into or step on the person in front of you. But hey, that’s okay—it’s a part of life in the big city.

Enter the cell phone. Suddenly you have every other pair of eyes on the sidewalk glued to the screen of a cell phone six inches from the nose and no one is watching where they’re walking, no one is aware of life beyond the small virtual world before their locked down eyes, no one hears, acknowledges or reacts to anything, but moves in a zombie pace through the crowd, oblivious to the reality around them. A person could drop dead at their feet and the phone-zombie would pass on totally unaware. And don’t look for an apology when someone walks straight into you. You are invisible.

Drives me bananas, but like I say, it isn't going to go away anytime soon. Cell phones are the very infrastructure of life in Japan and it’s hard to imagine how people could maintain their social existence and identity without them.

Public space has become a place where physically present individuals interact with other individuals in remote places. On several occasions I’ve sat in restaurants near couples at another table who passed the time texting and talking on cell phones, as if unaware they had come with the person opposite. Why bother to meet? My guess is, instead of meeting face to face, they might be more comfortable talking to, or texting each other on the phone.

People are fast losing the skills of face to face communication, not only with the people around them, but equally with the physical environment they are passing through. It’s no longer unusual to see people in museums, galleries, movies and parks busy with the buttons on a cell phone, completely unseeing of anything connected to their real and present environment.

But let me end this rant with my favorite cell phone story. Not too long ago while walking down the street, I happened to look up and notice a woman passing on her bicycle, a little girl of about three in the baby seat behind her. Since it is a daily sight here, I thought little of the fact that the woman was steering with one hand and working her cell phone with the other—eyes down, of course. But just at that moment she drove her bicycle head on into a utility pole at the side of the street. Everything went flying! Mother to one side, child to the other and bicycle upended, all in a heap at the foot of the pole. Before anyone could come to their aid, the woman was up, dusting off the wailing child, righting her slightly bent bicycle and pedaling off with the crying baby reseated and the cell phone once more active in her right hand, headed I guess for the next light pole up the street.

Photo credit: Taken from the cover of the 1995 Simon & Schuster book Life on the Screen by Sherry Turkle