"Being Connected" Means Disconnecting from Your Self

The extent to which so many people shut down their senses against things that are going on around them is astonishing. I’ve observed repeated evidence of this in recent days.

I ride the Portland Streetcar pretty much every day: sometimes for short hops as a patron, and other times for several hours as an employee. Recorded announcements over the p.a. system let riders know on a regular basis what kind of car they’re on: whether it’s heading to northwest Portland, the South Waterfront, or across the river to the east side.

Yet people don’t hear them. They constantly ask me and one another which train they’re on. “This is the Northwest 22nd and Northrup stop,” the calm female announcer’s voice stated as I stood up to get off for a work shift at another job last week. Right away, directly behind me, I heard someone ask, “Is this 23rd?”

Last Wednesday, March 11, my wife Carole was aboard a streetcar that was already passing a parked vehicle when the woman inside opened her door into the train, which naturally bashed and bent it. She screamed. Carole said everyone on board who heard her thought the train had struck someone. Why hadn’t this idiot looked out the window or in her rearview mirror before reaching for her door handle? (And could her insurance company deny coverage on the basis of stupidity?)

Even more dire, early Monday morning a garbage truck made an illegal turn downtown, knocked down a pedestrian, and severed his leg. This was about ten blocks from our apartment, and one block from where I started my weekly Portland Walking Tour with nine visitors to town Tuesday morning, just 30 hours later. The driver had ignored the “No Turns” signs at the intersection, and crossed Green and Yellow Max light rail tracks illegally before hitting a man on foot. As far as I know, the victim is still in the hospital.

Any time of the day or night, I can stand on any street corner or streetcar platform and immediately begin counting cars driven by someone who’s texting or checking email at a light, or clinging to a smartphone with one hand while driving with the other. Why are they all so casually breaking the law? Carole sourly jokes that they’re all waiting desperately for news of an available liver for transplant.

I see streetcar passengers leaping to get off a train, sometimes too late to beat the closing doors, because they weren’t paying attention enough to know the trolley had arrived at their stop. I see people sitting in a motionless car with a green light before them, another driver honking behind, because they’ve been catching another vital moment of sharing with their smartphone.

People constantly shut down their hearing and narrow their field of vision -- by choice! Everywhere, ears are plugged into phones and music players, and eyes are glued to tiny screens while their owners are walking, waiting to meet someone, sitting with a friend on transit or at lunch, and even driving.  People are busy “connecting” … which in effect means they’re trying to be somewhere other than where they are.

In other words, people are avoiding precisely what any decent religion or spiritual value system aims to help them do better: Be In The Moment. As Eric Weiner, author of the book Man Seeks God: my flirtations with the divine, writes, a Wiccan practitioner told him her goofy rituals say to her:

“Take a look around. What are you missing when you are rushing around? Take a moment.” She calls it “the cosmic two-by-four.” I bet it makes a loud thwack when it hits you upside the head. That sound probably sums up 90 percent of all religious and spiritual practices. Saying grace before a meal. Watching our breath. Repeating the ninety-nine names of Allah. Whirling like a dervish. Prayer. They all have one objective: to get us to pause just long enough to realize that life, your life, is a freaking miracle. The least you can do is pay attention.

I don’t have a smartphone, so I don’t check email, catch up on the latest about Iran or the Kardashians, or watch videos in my palm when I’m out and about. I’ve never texted anyone. And ever since the new year, when I mostly gave up one of my favorite diversions -- reading a book while walking, riding on mass transit, and waiting for movies to start or meals to be served -- I’ve found myself enjoying the luxury of observing more, writing notes to myself, and thinking about things. I’m being more in the moment than I used to be, and enjoying my own company.

That’s at the heart of people’s overdependence on social media and gadgets, I think: running away from the self. Sure, they’re “just a habit,” and “everybody does it,” but deep down, I suspect people cling to their smartphones and web access and iPods because they fear their own minds. Being alone with their thoughts leads to greater anxiety. It might put them in closer touch with their fears, their insecurities, their mortality … with death itself.

And who wants that? Better to think other people’s thoughts, groove on other people’s music, consume ever greater amounts of news/entertainment/gossip and clothing/food/toys, than to have to get to know yourself a little better.