Were it not for the unexpected appearance of a stink bug on my keyboard a few weekends ago, I’d have written a piece for you on the meaning and rewards of solitude. I was at the cabin; that’s where I go for it. Have been for 15 years. But the stink bug invasion—and that’s what he was, the harbinger of an invasion—broke solitude’s delicate spell and saved us all (whew!) from that particular exercise.
A few days later, back home, my new Droid X arrived. So much for solitude’s delicate spell.
I used to have a simple cell phone. I’d drive up to the cabin for the weekend, where there’s no internet access, and once in awhile that phone would ring. But mostly it was just me and the woods—along with the woodland creatures, and an occasional local teen roaring past on a dirt bike, and my thoughts.
But when they sold me the Droid X, the latest thing in smart phones, they sold me access to the internet no matter where I am. So that now, even at the cabin, I’m connected. You remember 2001: A Space Odyssey. Remember how quiet it was in deep space, as the crew of the spaceship sailed out toward "Jupiter, and beyond the infinite"? The only thing sound was the velvet-voiced HAL 9000, the computer who ran the ship. It’s kind of like that at the cabin now, though the Droid X is anything but velvet-voiced. It announces itself with a jarring, reverberating, “DROID!” And when it does, you jump.
I remember in 1968, when 2001 came out, I was so taken with it that I pressured my father into a rare trip to the movies. “So, Dad,” I asked him afterward, “what do you think it means?” And he surprised me. He said: “The meaning of this story is that no matter where you go, you take yourself along.”
That’s what I was going to write about when the stink bug showed up. Drive out to the cabin by yourself, with a weekend’s provisions and some books and your laptop, and though you may have left the world behind, you’ve taken yourself along. And that self of yours has been absolutely dying for the opportunity to spend a little time with you. Just you and yourself, BFFs.
But now as I sit on the deck at the cabin, or inside on the couch or at the computer—there’s this Droid X. The experience is very different now. I don't just take myself along; I take everybody.
In the silence the Droid X erupts—“DROID!”—and I know that a text message has arrived, or an e-mail, or that one of my facebook friends has messaged me or posted something on my wall.
No one’s making me answer, but the odd thing is: I want to. I want to hear from Deborah Rey and Piglet. I want to hear from Carroll in Chicago and Desmond in Malaysia and Fiona in the UK and Francesca in Italy and Wheels in Rhode Island and Mike in Hagerstown. I want Cathy in Connecticut to post a photo and Kelly in California to tell me how her writing’s going. I want to hear from my family and all my other friends and I don’t want to wait till Monday.
Who knew how fast I’d succumb? Is solitude not as precious as I made it out to be? Was it a pose? I used to run away for silence. Now they’ve run Broadway right through the center of my silence, with all manner of seductive and entertaining people dancing down the avenue, and I’m there. I’m so, as they say, there.
It’s downright Pavlovian when the Droid X calls out to me. I’ll drop everything—remember, I'm the guy who'll talk to a stink bug if one lands on my keyboard—and, without a thought, cast aside all that stuff about the value of communing with my consciousness, etc., etc. I'm beginning to think it might be best to just turn the damned thing off.
But then I also remember what happened when they tried to turn HAL off. And I also see certain unsettling similarities in the appearances of HAL and the Droid X. They could be related. I’m staring at my Droid X right now . . . and I swear it’s staring back.