"all we are, we are, and every day is the start of something beautiful."
i journeyed back to Manhattan on the LIRR from Ronkonkoma station, collapsing in exhaustion and smirking at how that station name belongs in Hawaii rather than the concrete jungle. i made the mistake of downloading the "Words with Friends" app on my iPhone because i apparently am choosing to never be productive and fuel my inexplicable desire to be competitive about questionable non-competitive activities. i blasted my iPod in unfulfilled hope of drowning out the hoards of underdressed and overmade up partygoers who were drunkenly yelling about whether or not Jennifer and Michael were "just hanging out" or "official." one of the 17-year-olds-using-the-ID-of-their-older-sister girls remarked that it was "complicated."
i glanced back at my phone in longing desperation, praying that i could pump the volume just a little bit higher to overpower the obnoxious shrill emanating from my right. as i sifted through songs and searched for an"erase your memory of this train ride" app, i realized that all of my fancy, technologically advanced "gaming" apps are simplistic board games or booklet games, like word searches and crossword puzzles and madlibs.
lately i've been examining my relationship with technology, trying to eliminate the timewasters and maximize the productivity. just how detrimental of a turn would my life take if i didn't know that someone i never liked in high school likes my check-in at "that bar i went to last Friday." of course Facebook, twitter, and social media in general have their place. for example, i went to Yankee Stadium today and need to share with the world how close i was to AJ Burnett to incite envy. and starting revolutions in Egypt or whatever. but other people's opinions very rarely impact my inane daily activities that i evidently need to share with the rest of the world, and i certainly don't need to be alerted about them every five seconds.
is my life made simpler by having all of these games a click away on my phone, or more complicated by how it's going to drain my battery life later? should we all be carrying around word search books and mad lib pads like camp counselors attempting to entertain a trouble child? do i default to my phone just because it's available or did it prevent me from committing felonies by soothing my desire to beat the crap out of that irritating gaggle of club kids?
beyond the scope of technology, it's human nature to complicate things, at least for some of us. maybe without these complications, we wouldn't appreciate raw simplicity for it's face value, which becomes sexier to me by the second. it's why waking someone up in the middle of night to tell them you love them for the first time is more romantic than plastering it on a scoreboard, and why accepting death is the only way to cope with it, and why self-loathing is only cured by self-respect and motivation, and why aggravating train passenger Jennifer would know how to act at the bar if she and Michael would define if they were dating or not.
as someone who spends more time in her head than she probably should, i also know my propensity to do so, and know that there's a threshold where you cross from "thinking through" to unproductive, draining, and exhausted. if you find depth but aren't in so deep you bottom out, you strike gold. if your stifle your feelings until they explode or wallow in the waters of your own troubles, you strike out.
we all know how important it is to let go when we "need" to; when a road block stands so tall and strong it obstructs the vision of your every day life. but do we let go when we "should," or more importantly, when we "could" let go of something that aids us in deteriorating by eating away at us slowly rather than swallowing us whole? if we drew straight lines of simplicity, would the complicated stop bending itself into question marks? what if there was no such thing as passive-aggressive and we lived within reasonable honesty?
it doesn't take surgery to die of complications
-k.
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