The Originalist

Ok, so, after all, Simon buys a phone. Not without some reluctance, for both big, sociological issues (i really don't like the way cell phone companies are run in the states, nor the prevalent ethics underlying public cell phone use), technological issues (is a camera on your phone still a selling point, or is it ever a convenient gadget, like, say when your out-modelled tub breaks and you need to send your architect father a picture of the spout so he can call around and find a horribly rare 1" fine-thread tub spout with a catch), as well as the strictly personal ones (get off my back, ex-girlfriend).

Those around me certainly aren't surprised by the 7 months i've spent without a personal locator device. Part of the subtle reasoning is that i miss my London lifestyle, where i rode double-decker busses to work, had free incoming calls on convenient Virgin phones without contractual strings, and drank constantly like yeast was a vitamin supplement (which it was, >10 pints a week and i never got a canker sore the whole time there). I've also been months without a car, which is as necessary in North Carolina as it would be ludicrous in London. I get by, though, happily, because the busses are regular, and i am nothing if not a creature of habit. Such is the course of an academic career, always being within a half-decent transit network, and always being forced to listen to innane conversations from how-drunk-i-gots and how-hot-she's-nots.

Of course, there is always a movement towards personal destruction. I just tend to do it in more obvious ways. In Pittsburgh I did it with my thoughts (reading far too many German and Russian authors), in London i did it with my body (drinking far too many lagers instead of ales), and here i am doing it in my actions: i am rejecting the conventions of the rushing populace. Not that this is any particular feat of social triumph, or that riding a bike to catch a cross-town bus constitutes anything but a ridiculous travel schedule and a debilitating lack of sleep.

Implicit in such identification of 'deviant' or 'destructive' behavior is, however, a 'normal' life. Not necessarily the 2.5 kids variety, but at the least a pointing to what some might call the Principles of Modern Life: call back your friends, live near your work, don't be a skeez, and don't hurl pumpkins after November. I think these pricinples, or morals, whathaveyou, are fluid, and take at least a few years to get established. But when they are, the ubiquity of those principles is nearly absolute, and those happy in the orignal world are forced to change.

Example: lets say you live in a pre-cell phone world--lets say this is W1. Then cell phones come along, creating W2, and the question suddenly becomes binary: do you have a cell phone? Yes or no? If yes, great, give us your number and do what cell-phone havers do. If no, why not? And suddenly, the person who wants to live in W1 is made to feel initially insufficient. I say initially, because after 7 months of not having one, the same people who berated me for not having a cell were used to the fact, and stopped berating me (as much). I approached a world that was a little easier, something in-between, maybe W1.5.

But the principles of the new world are forever present, they don't go away if you ignore them, and they make a mark on even those that make a concerted effort at "backward living": bicycles as primary transportation, backyard farms as primary sustenance, sweaters as primary heating device. But every co-op has to live within the context of urban sprawl, and every car pool has to negotiate the gridlock of hybrid cars. I have no stomach or motivation for this sort of social action. Frankly i preffered the decade where i wasn't hyper-aware, and a little disconnection was just part of the day-to-day.
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