Another sad lament, thinking about human duality and the problems phones cause.

Today, I write simply.

I find it hard, in my limited understanding of human working, to comprehend the duality element of people when technology is involved. When we’re sitting across each other, at a table in a small café and they’re playing slow love R&B songs, you’re stirring your tea and I’m slipping a piece of lemon meringue into my mouth … and I’m watching you type messages on your iPhone to other people, it makes me wonder : do you value the present moment? Or am I, as a friend, insubordinate to the cogs that turn in your phone, transmitting the agony of my company across oceans of wires to the hands of some other person back home in Durban?

Duality and fickleness, the prolonged silences that fill our mouths because you’re so far away and I’m simply not as commanding a presence to draw you into the present. It’s a gift you don’t need. Perhaps I’m being too sensitive, but I do believe that filling the spaces of silence with the ticking on your phone to be as injurious as your strange behaviour when we’re in a group. Why is it that the group identity of humans differs from the private one? When faced with all that we’ve been avoiding, in a single person, we’re left lost and confused as to how to react; or is it simply boredom?

I know some people have a predisposition towards a silent perspective on life, others speak their minds freely and wear their heart on their sleeve. Others, like me, simple live in a bubble, that gleams with rainbow colours of happiness and pathetic puns in a synthetic venture to bring happiness into the world when I, sadly, can’t seem to find it myself .

Why cling to the cherry blossom petal that’s floating away in the wind, when you can plant a new seed? Spreading yourself thin in an attempt to please every person you know won’t hold you in good stead when all someone wants is a few minutes of quality time in your gaze.

Why don’t people look at me ? Simply sit, and gaze with that dreamy look. I miss that look, having someone close to me, simply smiling back. My whole life I’ve undervalued the simplicity of holding hands – how glorious is it! The tool that someone uses to manipulate their way through the tasks of everyday life, how valuable they are! Shockingly intimate, to connect two hands – when the hand in itself is what connects us to the world.

If you went out with someone – a friend or whoever – and they spent a considerable portion of their time texting other people, you’d assume they aren’t the best person to be around continuously. Somewhat fickle, yet you know they’re essentially a good person. Somehow, it repels me. It’s so difficult to know a person, to pass judgement on their interactions in relation to who you are.

Who are you?

I look through the window, and I see rain drowning my garden, the fragile lilies weeping.