I'm Trying, Ringo

I haven't written on here in ages and I've recently been struck with an idea I think is absolutely worth writing about. I was originally prompted to write about the reason I wanted to start writing again: this reason being a lovely girl. One who I'm very curious to start something of a relationship with. Things will go how they'll go. I'd rather not dwell on them too much now, as there is plenty of time for that when there is something to actually be done. I'm nervous. I'm excited. This is irrelevant to what I'm writing about here, now. I'm prompted because when I realized the subject several hours earlier, she is the first person I wanted to talk to about it, almost habitually. I realized and considered the subject and my first thought was that she is the person I want to consider this with.

I'm dwelling and being self-indulgent. Ha! It's a fucking blog. What do you want from me? Let me explain nonetheless: technology is terrifying to me. Its beneficial in all its ways, but I dare you to have a conversation with someone and not look at your fucking cell phone at least once. Over the past several years I've told my parents that I don't want an iPhone because I didn't think I could handle the distraction, I really didn't think it was necessary, I didn't want to participate with everything else my generation was fixating on, and honestly, my game plan was to just get a smart phone when that's just what phones were. As you well know, I'm a fucking hypocrite. I currently now own an iPhone and I hate myself already. I still like myself better than most because I haven't become them, though, but I'm now more terrified of my future than I ever was, and as you know, my future from my perspective always looked a bit bleak. I have two examples of why I'm most scared, both of which happened earlier today. All of which happen every fucking day, but as you read, you'll recognize why I'm right. Every other example happens during every part of your day. Look around. Your life is terrifying. If you don't spend some time in silence, or your non-technological version of that, you don't appreciate life the way you probably should. If rain and wilderness, etc terrifies you, maybe you shouldn't still be allowed to appreciate the things in life that the rest of us do. Anyway. I'm in Auckland, NZ for a few weeks. Me and my dad met my brother and his special lady friend at a $4 pizza place ((which, given the fact that a single serving pizza would normally cost around $13 here, is fucking unprecedented, this was awesome (yes I realize what unprecedented means, but recognize the situation!; fuck off, self)) and not even ten minutes of us being there, all three of them were sitting there staring at their phones. We weren't talking about anything interesting that they were reading. They were having internal conversations with themselves instead of including the people that were around them. The thing that disappoints me most about this, is that even if they were to include us in what they were reading (my father excluded because more often than not, when he is looking at his phone, he is looking something up for reference) it would be some uncircumstantial meme, some top 13 list, something irrelevant, something fleeting and unnecessary and something which prompts a conversation for about ten seconds. I hate this reality. It hurt me worse when I was sitting here in my brother's apartment here in Auckland a few hours ago. I was sitting where I am now, with my computer sitting next to me, but off and away from distraction, mind you, fucking passive passers by, and he was having a very candid conversation about his career and current job choices and it was beautiful. He was honest. We made endless eye contact because there was nothing else in the world he cared about in that moment. He was purely himself and he was happy. He was unhappy about what his job currently entails and requires of him, but he was talking passionately about what he wants out of his life and out of a job, and that made me really happy. I was happy. He was happy. My father was happy. His girlfriend, however, had that soft, inconsiderate glow of a smart phone staring at her fare the entire conversation. She used it for the first five minutes, admitted to him that he was just reiterating what he was complaining about for weeks about this future job, but she wasn't exactly interested in his actual opinions about his own life. I like to hope that they have had this conversation before. But. I imagine if you're in a committed relationship with someone, that even if you're listening to them reiterate what they've said to you and a dozen others before, you would want to listen to what they have to say, because you might learn something about them, or you might learn about how they deal with repeating themselves, or how passionate they truly are about their own lives. No. She stared at her fucking life-altering cell phone. Her internal world which has everything to do with absolutely nothing. It's the most all-encompassing nothingness that exists. Its fucking terrifying. But you know where I write this from: a blinding computer screen. But. I'm trying. I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd..