The Practice of Flip Phones
I retired my Kyocera Cadence S2720 today after six years of trudging the road of happy destiny together
the ceremony was inconspicuous
though I will still have to spend a significant amount of time on it extracting contacts one by one to the new smart device
even a poet’s style of dress, even his intimate conversations with his wife, should be determined by the whole of his poetic production
—Vladimir Majakovskij
whatever I may have to say in addition to the thorough, already extant online content on the subject—I will try to limit myself to what it means to move on, spiritually, from dumb to smart
not least of all because of the month it has taken me to get through the work on so-called ‘anthropotechnics’, Peter Sloterdijk’s You Must Change Your Life and I thoroughly—again—accept the insufferable white theory bro vibes
(the same is coming hot off the digital press at The Ana imminently)
the affect of any physical habit either furthering one’s secession into the realm above, or drawing one closer to ordinary, prefabricated phrases of common society
the smart phone poses as the former
then again, now I’m working with two stubby thumbs that seem to be getting fatter and clumsier as I turn into my father ever so gradually
isn’t T9 more demanding mentally than these slick touch keyboards
that I was smarter and sexier than my flip phone was an unquestionable and critical aspect of our relationship, allowing for a certain amount of freedom for both parties—the freedom to be ourselves, weird as we want
wanted*
the new partner doesn’t even think to offer that kind of dynamic, selfish as they are, it never crossed their ‘mind’
what’s lost in the transition is a lesser demand on self-awareness—I find myself already firing off unstrategic comments and texts that I never would have allowed myself to do on the Kyocera if only for the austere economy of its interface
so now, not only am I outpaced on every metric by my new mistress, I also have to obey a new more strict censor on my internal impulse to express stupid things—ahm
I wouldn’t say I’m unhappy—after all, for my enduring devotion to the flip lifestyle Verizon offered me a $700 phone for free
but now what am I going to do with all the free time that used to be taken up by physically writing down on actual paper names of books I want to read, addresses of unknown destinations, phone numbers of new friends, and speaking the embarrassing excuses I had to make to defend my backwards friend