ou know, I think the thing about drunks and drug addicts is when you see them in their ragged states, hanging on at the margins of society. The sorrow from this comes from thinking about the lost potential – here was a person who fell through the cracks, who might have gone on to create great art, great items, great friendship and great loves, who, because of a weakness for drink or drugs, lost this chance.

I think this every day while in the downtown coffee shop and watching the baristas  take pity on the homeless who wander in, giving them water and a bathroom and a place to sit in the AC. I talked with one of them once, Terry, a guy who stood out on the street corner and preached at the passing cars. He was a postal worker for thirty years and presumably had some sort of pension (I suppose) but still lives in an alley. He said this was his calling. I’d say he was addicted to religion.

The reason this all comes to mind is a weekend gathering of friends to play a game (of sorts). I won’t say who or what, but it was a social gathering, playtime. But at one point, I looked around the group and saw that three of our five were on their phones, checking emails, messages, memes, bullshit. Only me and my crusty old friend (as phone-averse as me) were not turned to Medusa-stone by social media.

I’m not saying that cell-phoners end up on the street from their addiction (but I wouldn’t be surprised if some hard-core distractors did). But it’s just that while we were engaged in the game, these guys were half out of it like Schrödinger’s cat, not really in the moment, not really out of it, in some sort of blurred quantum state.

It’s a learned response, a thing you do to yourself, distracting yourself and getting that little pleasure-jolt when you get a like or a new meme or some transitory online crap. Where once you were a vibrant young human, full of possibility, now you are fulfilling whatever tasks your cellular provider profits from. You are a coppertop (as from the Matrix).

You are not your social media. Put down your phone and live.

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