Friday, October 18, 2013

Mobile Telephony



I'm writing this on the close cousin of my iPhone, my iPad.  There are advantages, but ... my friend Ramana was right to make this a topic for the Loose Blogger Consortium.  And, here's my take ...


My son has an iPhone.  My daughter has an iPhone.  Almost all the people I know have a mobile telephone.  So, we can always be in touch.  Too much in touch.


The electronic leash was apparent at my granddaughter's soccer match last Saturday, for her dad was on the sidelines with a conspicuous phone given him by the company he works for.  He is now totally in charge of all the plumbing of a major hospital wing construction here in the Bay Area.  It is the reward for responsibility and competence, the electronic leash!


It makes no sense in this day and age to not confer it upon him.  He must immediately respond if something springs a leak, for literally millions of dollars are at stake.  He has moved into the rarified atmosphere that used to be occupied only by doctors with their pagers in earlier times.  He has become the attached stopper, the one who handles the emergencies no one else is outfitted for.  He is like the President, always followed with the ultimate red emergency phone, the phone used only in the time that the world was trying to find an exit!


So, one would think he would be the easiest person in the world to reach by good old dad and mom, right?  I mean, in the old days you had to rely upon someone actually being home to reach them, but if they were, you knew they would answer the phone.  It was one of the rules of life: if the phone rings, you answer.


Ah, the irony!  If the phone is always on you, if you are tied to it, there is only one possible escape from it. You don't answer!  So, continuous availability yields NO availability.


Come on, kid!  Answer!

13 comments:

  1. Continuous availability yields no availability … brilliant Fossil. Also true.
    blessings ~ maxi

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  2. Ah - our old thinker struck gold with this one.

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  3. So many with modern means of communication ARE available, to hear, but not to listen!

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  4. Electronic leash - indeed.

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  5. One of our church leaders wisely suggested that we parents take away our children's cell phones at bedtime. I think that was wise council.

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  6. TOF your devious but perfectly valid logic is simply mind blowing. I doff my topi to you.
    There is a twist to the take in the case of my son. He is so leashed to the phone that I make it 70/30 to get him on first call. His number is usually busy. But, he has programmed it to give him a notice if he had missed calls while on other calls and he does call me as soon as possible. One of the advantages of being an old reprobate is that his mind immediately goes into overdrive imagining all kinds of scenarios that his old man could have got into and I get called back on priority. The same with my daughter in law who literally starts her conversation with "Are you alright Dada?" I bask.

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  7. @Maxi

    Yes, that is the way it seems to work.

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  8. @shackman

    LOL Even a blind miner hits paydirt sometimes.

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  9. @Grannymar

    That is, of course, profoundly true! The art of true social exchange, with depth and meaning, I fear has suffered horribly. It may just be because I am outside their social sphere, though.

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  10. @blackwatertown

    I experience the leash myself through my business, at times. It is a real pain.

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  11. @Delirious

    Great wisdom in that leader, I would say!

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  12. @Rummuser

    Speaking of being effectively devious, I think your play of the old reprobate hand is masterful!

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