If Santa tries to e-mail me I hope he doesn\u2019t want a prompt reply, or he\u2019ll probably just wind up leaving a lump of coal in my stocking. I pretty much unplugged from the cyber-world so I can enjoy some peace for the season. What\u2019s notable is that this should prove so, well, notable. But it has. Some of my friends are therefore adjudging that I\u2019m a Neanderthal or something. So if it pleases the jury, the accused will say a few words in his own defense.<\/p>\n
Even in normal times, unless I\u2019m working on something that might require responsiveness, I only check e-mail a few times a week.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, I think this makes me out of sync with the times. Judging from the glimpses I\u2019ve seen of the younger set, text messaging, smart phones, and other forms of connectivity seem to be a primary focus in life. <\/p>\n
Come to think of it, it\u2019s not just the younger set. A common sight in hotel restaurants at breakfast is the middle-aged guy staring into his laptop computer, totally engrossed in his cyber-bubble, while his wife sits across from him in an awkward, neglected silence. <\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not always silent. Some Prince Charming will usually be offering a running commentary on the news as he peruses it. It\u2019s mighty generous for such a guy to share his worldly wisdom with the little lady. And so much the better if he\u2019s shoving a toasted bagel into his gaping mouth during the monologue, since the mixture of saliva and dough has been known to soften the diphthongs a bit, making for a smooth tonal quality.<\/p>\n
I wonder how many wives have spent how many hours enduring how many breakfasts facing the backs of computers. Or, for that matter, newspapers. <\/p>\n
Maybe the instant cycle of news these days makes constant connectivity and attention to media seem necessary. Well, it\u2019s easy for to me to neglect, I guess, since I lack the hand-wringing impulse over what the world is doing. Why bother? For me, it\u2019s like microwaving a bag of popcorn; there\u2019s no need to stand there and watch it, it\u2019s more efficient to just follow the instructions on the bag. <\/p>\n
One of my favorite things about this season is that I get phone calls from pals all over the world, typically colleagues from various flying jobs and contracts. None of us are \u201ckeep in touch\u201d kind of people, so it usually takes Christmas to force us into that mode. It lets me reel in the years a bit, as I thumb through my photo album reliving our adventures and, in a few cases, our misadventures.<\/p>\n
Ah, adventure. There\u2019s no better time to think about it. So I\u2019ll spin a brief tropical yarn.<\/p>\n
When I worked at sea on merchant vessels as a helicopter pilot, we\u2019d be on the high seas for weeks, or even months, and we\u2019d get little, if any, news. I did have a special luxury, though; I was allowed a weekly, single-page fax from my girlfriend, which came via the company\u2019s maritime satellite connection. If there was an emergency a crewman could get a phone call placed via the satellite. So we weren\u2019t totally incommunicado, but a lot closer to it than most modern folks can even fathom.<\/p>\n
One guy eventually bought a fancy radio in port. It got satellite feed from an armed forces broadcast, but once at sea again the outside world seemed so distant and remote (because it was) that none of us could muster the energy to care about the news.<\/p>\n
Existence pretty much boiled down to a singularity: The ship. Society was our shipmates. My world was a helicopter. The universe was our slice of the ocean, and, for me, my slice of the sky. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a helluva way to earn a living. As a geezer now, I couldn\u2019t gather the guts to do it again. But I wouldn\u2019t take a million bucks to have forsaken the experience; professional adventure pays a type of interest that no bank can match. <\/p>\n
And, incidentally, for all its demands, that life was unfettered by the noise and chatter of the world at large, the same noise and chatter that compels constant connectivity these days. <\/p>\n
Well, that was a long time ago. As for the gal who sent the weekly faxes, she\u2019s now the lady at the other end of my breakfast nook. <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t deride connectivity or news, but it\u2019s never had a place at my table, and during the holidays I keep it even further at bay.<\/p>\n
So I can\u2019t send you an e-mail to relay the sentiment, but I wish you a very Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n
[I]Visit Ed Stephens Jr. at [URL=\u201dhttp:\/\/tropicaled.com\u201d]TropicalEd.com[\/URL]. Ed is a pilot, economist, and writer. He holds a degree in economics from UCLA and is a former U.S. naval officer. His column runs every Friday. [\/I]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Santa tries to e-mail me I hope he doesn\u2019t want a prompt reply, or he\u2019ll probably just wind up leaving a lump of coal in my stocking. I pretty much unplugged from the cyber-world so I can enjoy some peace for the season. What\u2019s notable is that this should prove so, well, notable. But it has. Some of my friends are therefore adjudging that I\u2019m a Neanderthal or something. So if it pleases the jury, the accused will say a few words in his own defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}