Christmas in exile - Rodney's Potpouri
As the Christmas holidays approached last month, I decided to finally treat myself to a new mobile phone.
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My Samsung phone was working fairly well, but after a few years of fairly heavy use, its battery power was not quite what it used to be, and my love had begun to dip.
It was time to move on.
You only live once, I told myself.
Phone migration
When one of my office staff suggested a migration to an iphone, I scoffed at the idea, but Selorm had quite a good sales talent and a persistent trait.
After a straw poll of the office and of a few other colleagues, I said to myself ‘why not?’
A few hours later I was brandishing an iphone, wincing as I recalled the price tag and thinking of what else I could have done with the money.
It was now time to migrate my applications from the old phone to the new.
Everything seemed seamless, until I hit a snag with my Whatsapp verification PIN to enable me to download the application on my swanky, sleek new phone.
After several valiant efforts, I was banished from Whatsapp for 7 days.
I had a mild panic attack.
My Christmas was not going to go well, I reckoned.
The sense of helplessness and loss was acute, and at times I felt I was in prison. I had become accustomed to whatsapp alert sounds and checking my messages literally every second of the day, and it was an important lifeline to and from my friends abroad.
Of course, particularly with many whatsapp groups, a lot of recycled clips, passages and images, from stale jokes to football to religion to politics can be an annoying staple, but somehow you feel you are missing out without access to the platform, and that you may miss something important, which then feeds and nurtures the dependency on it.
Peaceful realisation
In my despair and gloom, I began to wonder how life was without whatsapp, and then realised that unlike many young people of today, I actually lived through the time when there were no mobile phones to begin with, yet somehow life trudged along just fine, with the earth journeying around the sun at its own pace.
After a few days I realised I was beginning to enjoy life without whatsapp, that life was a tad more peaceful without it, and that the heavens had not fallen through without it.
Friends who truly and urgently needed to reach me either called me or sent me SMS messages.
I could get used to this, I reckoned.
The bliss I was enjoying was only shattered to smithereens on Boxing Day with news of the passing of a very good friend of several years, who I considered a brother and a nephew.
Benard had been unwell for some time, but there was no inkling when we spoke on Christmas Day that it would be the last time we would ever speak.
I am still reeling.
Boxing Day each year will definitely bring unhappy memories in the years to come.
Irony of mobile phones
Eventually, my banishment came to an end and I rejoined civilisation as we know it.
Sadly I had lost several important files and chats, but at least I was back.
Somehow, however, rather than excitement and exhilrarion, dreariness was what seemed to envelope me as I tucked in – a sense almost like stepping onto a treadmill stretching into the distance, never-ending.
Then it struck me that the irony of the modern, technology-driven mobile phones that we drool over and pay an arm and leg for, together with all manner of applications that are supposed to keep us in touch with the world, is that in many cases we become slaves to them, feeling helpless and inadequate without them.
In many cases, it is the first thing we reach for in the morning to check messages and updates before crawling out of bed, and the last thing we look at before going to bed.
Perhaps, for my 2024 resolution, I should get a ‘yam’ phone and then occasionally, deactivate my iphone for a few days and experience true peace whilst being a phone call away. Maybe you should try it too.
Go on.
The world will function just fine for those few days without you being on every social media platform.
Happy New Year to you all
