I must be a Luddite or maybe just old-fashioned. I don't think that we, as a society, need to be electronically attached to each other to the point where there is no longer any privacy. Cell phones have become fashion accessories, semi-permanently attached to ears with ‘New Blue-Tooth Technology', slung at hips and on belts or hidden in the depths of handbags and backpacks to become a chorus of chirping, whistling, screeching noise. And the people who walk around with these bits of electric and computerized semi-body parts, talking to themselves as though they were recently released sufferers of a psychotic break without their medication, seem to think themselves more important than the rest of us Poor Mortals without such contraptions.
    I have never owned a cell phone. I have never owned a beeper. (When exactly did beepers fall from grace? For all their faults, at least we never talked to the dratted things! Cursed them, turned them off, threw them into toilets perhaps, but never talked *to* them.) I do not ever intend to own a cell phone or ‘PDA' unless some major change takes place in my life. ( As major changes have happened before, I admit the possibility, but stand firm in my resolve. It must be a Major Change.) I have no need of either one of the electronic leashes that the majority of society seems to be determined to adorn themselves.
    Unlike computers, of which I have known many versions and varieties, cell phones and PDAs have no true use in our society. Landlines are just as useful, though they may require planning and strategy to manage, if you are used to the impromptu-ness and lack-of-mindfulness that come with extended use of cell phones and PDAs. And I haven't found a PDA that can do as much as a well-managed desktop computer and a notebook with pen or pencil.
     I am reading a rather self-absorbed book about a rather self-absorbed young woman who, over the course of a year, gives up one fixation each month to pick it back up again in the following month. Call it her personal experiment in a reduction of convenience. If this is the generation following me, this whining, petulant woman-child, then I want no more of it. She can't manage a social life without booze, she can't manage any kind of life without her cell phone which even has a nick-name, and she treats going without spending $500 on clothing she does not wear as a religious conversion. Argh! Please tell me that the X-Gens are better than this, stronger than this, definitely more intelligent than this!
     Yes, I live a simpler life by choice. And yes, it has occasionally caused confusion and problems for other people but this is my choice. I will live without having to wonder if I still have ‘minutes' or if someone is ‘in my calling zone/plan'. I won't have to wonder if the tower can reach me. I can still be talked at 24/7 thanks to an answering machine and my trusty computer (just the latest in a long line of trusty machines), neither of which I feel any urge to wear or carry about. I do not disturb others with odd noises coming from strange electronics secreted about my person. I feel no need to share the latest of my personal activities with anyone within the sound of my voice. (That's what blogging's for!)
     My dream world would be to carry about a cell phone free zone. I would travel in my own quiet world where both sides of a conversation, if heard, would be heard; where people would not chat with others over the toilet; where, if someone were talking in a car you had an idea if they were talking to a friend or back to the radio.
     Come. Join me. Become part of the bigger world and focus on one thing at a time - talking to a friend *or* driving your car - and see the wonders of a sunset, a flying hawk, or the guy who just pulled in front of you in traffic. And you can save so much money doing so!!

     Best thoughts for a simple life,