Many people have written on this subject and I am yet another, but there is a reason I write. We have all seen it; the people who are looking at their hands while walking the street, sitting at the dinner table, in line at the grocery store. They are not just staring at their palm waiting to uncover some mystery inside their future, they are staring at a piece of plastic connected to their outside world. You know, the phone thing.... Well, I have a few little observations....
I was a child of boring summers too. I was the one at the end of the driveway with a few bags of horse droppings for sale to help the neighbors gardens. I sat there in the hot summer sun alone waiting for a 5.00 sale so that I could save up for a Rick Springfield cassette. I wish I had an i-phone so I could do this while chatting with friends, but I didn't.
I was also the one on the school lunch line by myself with no-one to talk to because my best friend was sick that day. It would have helped tremendously if I could have looked into my palm for a few insights from anyone so I didn't feel so alone.
I am all for communication, it's part of why I am an acting teacher. I love talking, listening and finding out someones reaction; how they feel... human beings are extraordinarily fascinating.
Plastic reactions and conversations should be second, that's all. Here is why. I recently returned from a trip on the ferry. At the entrance was a booth where a few kids were working together to instruct the drivers where to go to wait for a spot. There were three teenage boys at a summer job in an open booth of about five feet. They were all starring at their palms; one smiling, one expressionless. None of the three looking at each other. It was a summer job. Maybe they didn't like each other, maybe they did; but you wouldn't know. They wouldn't know. They were too busy avoiding that moment looking into their palms at the future instead.
