Disconnected

Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News posted a blog about the effects of too much information on people. http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/04/only-disconnect.html

I commented. Now, I give you the chance to comment on my comment.

My Comment:
This week I sent an email to a number of people asking them to delete my cell phone number from their information about me. They call the house phone. If I don't answer, they immediately hang up and call the cell phone. When I don't answer, they gripe because if I'm going to have a cell phone, I should answer. The irony of this is that both phones were sitting on my counter when they rang. I heard them ring. I ignored them as my children and I were in the middle of homeschool-my day job as I call it, and everyone who calls knows I don't answer the phone until after 2:00 anyway.

Do you remember the time when there was one phone in the house tethered to a wall, and if you called someone who did not pick up, you simply called back later because they did not have voice mail or an answering machine or multiple other options for reaching them?

The world did not end then. No one rushed home in case someone was trying to reach them. No one accused the call recipient of ignoring them if they didn't pick up immediately or within a certain number of rings or at all. We simply assumed folks were busy. We would catch them when they weren't.

The problem is we have lost the wisdom to not be busy. We have lost the wisdom to sit on the porch in a rocking chair and sip lemonade. We have forgotten the therapy of card night with friends. It isn't that we want or need more information about others. It is that we are afraid of what we might learn if we are actually alone with ourselves. So, we hide. We hide in blogs, emails, Facebooks, cell phones, and anywhere else that keeps us from aspects of ourselves we want to avoid.

It isn't about what we want to know. It is about what we DON'T want to know.