Matt W Cook

It never stops. It never shuts up. And when you beg it to be quiet, you feel empty and cut off, don’t you?

The phone chirps with messages and e-mails. Each one is probably of dire importance, if we judge by the way we respond to them. A chirp from the phone pauses conversation. A ring signals an end altogether.

The computer flashes with new news. The blog reader is constantly being refilled as it begs, nay, demands to be read. And we drink down the thoughts of others while nodding or shaking our heads. Blogs of import, that we, in turn, blog about.

The television sings and dances with news and facts and laughs we cannot live without. With somber yet cheerful faces those familiar strangers fill our hours with stories of hunger in the east and lost kittys in the west. We mock them for slanting the stories and filtering the information, but remain hopelessly devoted to them.

And then the day ends and the noises cease. We have nothing to hear but the murmurs of our awesome minds. And what do they say at the end? Very little. They have been overfed and undernourished. They have gorged on the tender snacks of media and unbreakable communication. And they are sated. They are tired, you see. They need a rest. Yes, a night’s rest will do them good. Tomorrow will be clearer. Tomorrow we shall be wiser.

And as I sit in the dark, with all my pretty toys turned off, my mind begins to stir and wake again, as it once did, so long ago. The truth is clear, of course. My phones and TVs and Internets and blogs and chirps and bells and whistles are making me stupid. No argument. Case closed. But will I stop? Indeed, as I type this and throw it on the Internet and beg people to read it, am I advancing the problem?