I usually wake up super sleepy and the first thing I do is
pray or brush my teeth? No I reach out to my phone and from then on its message alert
followed by work email, then news via twitter and then FB. By then I am at the
point I am about to take a shower. Yes I understand, none of you want to touch
my phone. While I am in the shower its NPR app on my phone or music goes on
until I leave the house. Then it’s on my car stereo. The technology is non
stop. Then at work, duh obviously. The times when I am actually not hooked on are
when I am deciding what to wear and while visiting friends. Well that’s
probably it. All our gadgets have coffee stains and god knows what on them. The
need to know whats happening is incessant. When the Boston bombing happened I
called my cousin who lives there to see if she was ok. She was like “Yeah, why
do you ask?” And the wrong news that got retweeted over and over. I was one of
them. So excited when something bad happens in the world it’s unbelievable. My
husband and I love AT&T though their network sucks big time because you can
talk on the phone and still browse the Internet and tweet and facebook. There
is a problem right there. The only time we are not hooked on to our gadgets or
cable is when we go out to eat and at certain rare occasions at home when we
decide quality time over other things. Which is as often as we cook a full
meal. Oh and when are running “together” we have our own music or books! That
we listen to. There used to be a precious 15minute to an hour when I used to
read to sleep. An actual book that’s more than a ten-page article. Now its over
take by the “readit later” app.
There was a simple time when my mother would pick up the
Hindu paper and skip directly to the obituary section and my father would read
aloud everyone’s rasi from the tamil paper whether we like it or not. Last week
when they moved, they have to live without Internet for two days. Every time I
called my mother the first thing she would say was “internet-e illa de”. And my
dad would growl “ that bloody man, what was he thinking, I told him not to
unplug it until the last day?” They did not have electricity for few hours a
day and got drinking water only for couple of hours a day. Everyone is corrupt.
And news is not news anymore. Just what happened..hmmm. That’s
not a good news channel. Everything is an insight. You need to have an opinion
Even if you are just a regular person. Anyway the reason for saying all this is
that am starting my own Sabbath on Saturday mornings. Just for a couple of
hours. Yes and it is going to be after I wake up. I will remember that.
Hopefully have less more birdbrain moments from here on! Mazel tov.
