I was paid a compliment the other day when someone thanked me for helping them procrastinate. We had chatted aimlessly and amiably for a couple of hours, managing to find humor in the most unexpected places.
Just about everything can be funny if you look at it from the right angle. Even the most pompous one-name celebrity is funny when they drop their keys in the toilet, and humor is a much-needed tonic in this age of fear.
Finding that angle is easier when you have a friend who does geometry the same way as you. C. S. Lewis said, “Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
When you find that friendship, hold on to it. Nurture it. The more pages turn on the calendar, the harder it is to find, and as the hive mind of fear and bestial gratification claims more and more of our collective consciousness, the harder it is to maintain.
As a member of the penultimate generation that grew up with telephones attached to wires, it’s hard to explain to someone who grew up with pixels the sequence of events which led to the demise of the conversation, or the importance of two friends talking in helping to anchor our spirits in stormy seas or in filling our sails in the doldrums.
I think it began with the answering machine which, to our more recent arrivals on the planet, was the grandfather of voicemail. That machine enabled call screening. You could put off a conversation for another time, and unfortunately for friendship, this coincided with the time when western civilization began working more hours for less purchasing power – just as the number and variety of things we were conditioned to purchase exploded.
We’ll skip lightly over the story everyone knows, of how information technology and the internet forever changed the way we communicate, and we’ll fast forward to today when many consider it rude to call without texting first.
The net result is that the phone rings less often with calls from people who want to chat with us and with whom we also want to chat. There are many calls from computers and people who want to sell us crap (call screening is now indispensable), but not many from people who want to pass the time enjoying the shared vision of friendship.
It didn’t happen all at once, but through attrition. Over time those calls, even from people with whom we were close, were replaced, first by email. Then texting. Raise your hand if you can quickly name the friends – and family – who send funny cat pictures, links to videos and “interesting articles” much more often than they share their own thoughts or even a few moments of listening to each other talk.
It’s impossible to predict what the hive mind has in store for humanity, but with the advent of artificial intelligence, I will not be surprised to see the virtual buddy beginning to fill the void vacated by friendship with something scarcely more tangible than the emptiness. I’m waiting for Apple to introduce the iFriend soon.
Human nature is stubborn, however. Notice that the hive mind has been thus far unable to completely overcome the natural urgings of that nature. The young still find reasons to chat in a way that utilizes the vocal chords even as their parents search Google for more cat pictures.
I have a young friend who, to the uninformed, might be considered a “gamer,” and he has helped make me one as well, at least occasionally. With our headsets connected to console and computer, we have slain many foes together. Last week we ruled Halo for a good hour and a half – but during this time we talked. Really talked. We chatted in the ancient way about weather and family and current events, and at the end of our visit, surrounded by the bodies of our enemies, we were satisfied.
Of course, even in the good old days, if you had “a lot” of friends there was never enough time to speak with all of them at length, especially when the length of the wire attaching the phone to the wall was so limiting. But there were always a few who, when they called, would inspire you to sit down for a bit, or cradle the phone contentedly while you chopped the celery or washed the dishes.
I would venture to say that your list of people like that has grown shorter over time. If you’re like me, you’ll have friends you see occasionally, even regularly, and when you do, you’ll talk across a table or even a campfire and use the vocal chords God gave you for the purpose for which they were given. You might not even look at your phone for a while.
If you’re lucky, you may have a lot of friends like that, but my guess is, on the day after that gathering several might text, but only a handful, perhaps only one or two, will call to share a thought they just had, or ask how your mother is doing after her surgery.
Make it your mission to call those people too, because when those conversations cease, there is nothing in the material world, or the virtual, which can replace them.
Outside The Box 