Time Machines

The first phone I ever owned was a silver Motorola Razr from T-Mobile. There is nothing quite like the horror seeing your phone gently rock down to the bottom of a pool. The second phone I ever owned was my mom’s pink Motorola Razr.

Then, a phone was for Mom. It took four days to go from “:-)” texts to maxing out the 180 character texts with T-9. I don’t even remember what we talked about – what could we talk about? We were 7th graders. We decided who had a better phone by throwing them out the bus window and seeing which survived. It was a different world.

I walked in my first day of 9th grade with a T-Mobile MyTouch. I graduated college with a Samsung S7. Everything changed, but one thing remained constant – phones were for now. “What’s happening, what are you up to, let’s go out this week, did you hear about Josh, that bitch”. Phones were a connection to the world around us – they enabled us to live a life worth recording.

That same S7 is sitting beside me now. I use it to walk through the world around me, yes. But I also use it to visit the past. Even though my family and friends are scattered around the world, they’re connected to me. In a moment, I can relive a night through the pictures and videos I saved. I can smile and remember what it was like, message them and enjoy a moment of reminiscence together. There is no barrier to a quick message of appreciation or thoughts. Relationships are maintained, but not grown. Not really, anyway.

I can read a map or carry around a Spanish-English dictionary. But this machine can teleport me to a moment beyond time, and then allow me to share that moment with someone I care about. That is a very new phenomenon we can all access. With that kind of power at our fingertips, is it any wonder we struggle with living in the past?

Thanks for taking a sip,

Alejandro

~ What I’m Listening to Right Now ~

Inspired by a conversation I had today about living through the phone. I completely missed the opportunity to listen to “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” by Notorious Woman Beater Chris Brown. Maybe not so bad.