Mimeograph
28 November 2009
A church lady, at an oxymoronous event called “the coffee social,” chided me for not being up to date.
“Are you on Facebook, Father?”
“No, I’m not,” and she looked stern, because she was ready to offer me a prize that had something, but not exactly, to do with Friendship.
[…]
“You probably don’t even Tweet.” Her disdain was peeking out from under her suburban charm.
No. I shook my head like Charlie Brown in the discouraged pumpkin patch.
[…]
I couldn’t manage it. I could not read or think with all the chatting and practices and associations and shows and games. I could not think in paragraphs, or a sentence, with all the talking about what other people are doing while they themselves are wondering what I’m doing while I’m pecking and swiping with thumbs on a touch-sensitive screen.
What are you doing? Typing? What are you saying while you chat? What are you thinking, while touching the wares at Chico’s and Brookstone’s? What do you mean, behind the screen?
Nothing, of course, is the answer — but nothing while the background music is at full.
She and her Facebook Friends, usually frenetic, are bored. Full of information, but unable to hoist belief against the anxious and despondent tide of the 4 am abyss.
