It is easy to be seduced by the technology of today. I sometimes wonder how my grandparents reacted to the invention of the television. My great-great grandmother, I was told, looked in wonder at those flying things called airplanes. I can see her in my ancestral memory looking up into all that blue sky and whispering, "Well I declare". I have spent much time in front of a computer screen in my professional and personal life and have bags under my eyes to show for it. I own a laptop that I use for typing documents—namely poems, essays and short stories. I like the convenience of composing a poem or story and being able to send it to an editor or friend with the push of a button. But oftentimes I find myself distracted by other tech-related digital realities, namely Facebook. I found myself logging onto this digital friendship train—morning, noon and night. It was becoming a serious distraction. I was sucked into my computer terminal until I felt I was acquiring some kind of digital terminal illness. I decided to take the first step—i decided to get off Facebook.
Firstly, I have grown tired of Mark Zuckerberg. Seeing his face online or in print somehow conjures this idea I have that Zuckerberg is actually Ronald McDonald without makeup. Everybody I know is on Facebook and soon I amassed over 400 friends. This was a shot of adrenaline to my digital ego. But I took a realistic inventory of my friendships one day and I found the number closer to 4 or 5 in total (an estimate). These friendships, I found, are more analog in nature because they were formed before the mass marketing of PC's, cellphones, the internet or ipads. In short, these friendships were formed in the era of LP's, typewriters, cassette tapes, transistor radios and 1 ply toilet paper.
My constant engagement in Facebook was taking too much of my time. The lines separating my real face and my facebook face were getting blurred. I began to get headaches. I made the decision to give it up, get out. I started logging back into the good old fashioned US Post Office. As you probably know, many post offices across the country have closed and a plan to discontinue Saturday delivery has been decided on. But I went ahead and started buying postcards and sending them to friends and family; I started writing letters and, on occasion, sending a book (ie: made of paper), a scarf or a hat to those who might appreciate it. I soon began cutting back on sending email. It seems that folks are sending less email since the majority appear to be communicating mostly via Facebook.
The notes and letters I write are on small notepads or postcards. I send plenty notes to my father—the original link to my analog past. He lives an analog life—his cell phone is as high tech as he gets. He lives in Hawaii so my handwritten notes pass any number of hands, whose prints are distinct in their DNA and chemistry—where they sort through and take my note, with its distinct handwriting and send it to the islands. My dad gets it in his mailbox. I imagine his thick brown fingers running along the edges of the envelope. I think of his eyes when he sees that it is a letter from his son. When he sees it postmarked “San Francisco”, does he smell the smell of the salt air and fog, does he hear the fog horns, does he smell the fish from the markets in Chinatown? I can only imagine.
I started writing letters and notes to my sister, cousins and friends. I stand in line at the post office, across the street from the offices of Twitter. The line is sometimes long but the long of it helps me deal with the nature of my patience—which is short. I look at the people in line. I see their faces—the nuances of their posture, demeanor, vibe—those things that make us people. Sending cards, notes, letters—written by hand in all its nuances and imperfections—has cleared my mind and made my communication more real. Just this week I received a letter. It was from my sister. Her handwriting jumps and bends and slants beautifully. She is a dancer and her words dance across the page. She sent two photos of my nephew who she has enrolled in piano.
Since I got off Facebook and cut back on email, my mind is clearer. I am no longer under the digital illusion of friendship. To be honest, I don't miss it. I am better off without it. It is, I might add, my resistance to the proliferation of the “digital person”--that two-legged techwashed being who lives on digital air, digital emotions, digital food and 10 thousand other digital impulses. This person doesn't seem real yet they're all over the place, staring into their screens or through the tinted glassed google buses while who knows what stares back.
I want to see my elders and children of the community—real people in my city that is becoming less real and more digital. I want to touch my community the way it has touched me. Real and to be felt, in resistance to the drone of the techwashed masses.
See you at the post office