"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."
—Thoreau
The call came several times last week. By last week I mean Tuesday afternoon and by several times I mean again & again within a short span, but more importantly most inconveniently a period during which I was otherwise engaged.
"Maybe it's important," she said, after I'd already told her I do not interrupt these sessions so. There is nothing wrong with building boundaries around engagement; in point of fact, the building we were in was not strong on mobile reception, this room, this moment, sadly an exception. I insist on dedication, though it's now clear the distraction is testing me.
My dedicated insistence says it would be inconsiderate to allow my consideration to be directed away from here, though it is clear above all else I don't want to go there. So, yeah, it's me.
I am projecting my micro-motivations mirrored upon the invisible inquisitor. I want to answer the inquiry on my terms, in my time, and with my own carefully crafted weasel terminology just in case they intend to preempt my bluffs or set me up.
Also, and on an additional hand, disembodied speaking requires the kind of improvisation I was never fond of, the kind that carries the conscience of reacting at someone else's expense. But, sure, it's my own fault if I cannot say no to the sound of a voice. So I say no for now by not picking up.
That there even came a call carries with it an overtone of required rapid negotiation, a flow chart of potentialities too long for two-thumb typing, a clamorous buzz that says, "Had you only answered that email. Like, immediately."
There is a device that would allow me to read the inquisitor's questions in near real time, but tethered, as it were, to theirs forever, for forever is not just now into the infinite, it is foremost always now.
Once you decide to engage in the cloud, and then precisely at that moment when you have an observable, breathing body in front of you whose eyes and ears will wander away the second you inform them by way of disengaging for the briefest tryst that your consideration is a trail of mist, all bets are off as to where and when and what your engagement will ever be able to be.
What seemed to originate as promised convenience and nifty entertainment has always been but an extension of bread and circus crumbs. Certain as the circuses ring all around me, I don't want to be responsible to a crumb.
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Original notes placed at my feet:
How can I describe these people without sounding disrespectful? Why, behind their backs, of course.
There's nothing furtive about desperation. Not even the quiet kind.
What we're experiencing and how we're taking it in is as if we're watching how we came into existence.
Forget about Satan and your soul, this web is arresting our consciousness.
