Geeking Out, Counting Stats and Avoiding Cell Phones

Way back when I first started this blog (ummm, last week?), I made reference to the fact that I haven't ever owned a cell phone and hope to never own one. Most of my friends and colleagues (including my VBFFITWWW Johnny Flemmons) think that (1) this is strange and (2) this is because I want to feel morally superior to all of the sheepishly consumeristic masses who are brainwashed into chasing after the newest techno-sparkly i-thing.

About that second part:

It is true that I like feeling morally superior. It's like warm chocolate chip cookies and cold milk for the ego. The fact that my cell-phone-non-ownership is the only morally superior leg I have to stand on with my colleagues notwithstanding, I like choosing to do something different than our culture expects.* (It also makes me identify with my Amish brothers and sisters a wee bit more: plain folk represent!)

But here's the dirty secret about why I don't own a cell phone: if I did, I would be the most cell-phone-using, text-message-sending, phoning-while-driving-and-bored, app-downloading, 3-G-i-phone-debut-anticipating, waiting-in-line-to-buy-it dude what ever did stride across God's green earth. My technophobia is intended to be antidote for my highly geeky propensities. (That's right, I said "propensities;" and I said "stride" a few sentences back; I also use semicolons with abandon. What of it?)

Since I staked my claim to this tiny little corner of cyberspace, a few funny things have happened:

I blog about 10 times more frequently than I expected and about 50 times more frequently than is really morally (or even comedically) justified. I have checked daily (hourly, half-hourly, quarter-hourly!) for comments; I'm like a kid peeking out the window waiting for grandparents to arrive for a Christmas visit. I have downloaded and installed a bit of sotfware from Google to count visitors and compile statistics. I have waited with bated breath for my first statistical report. (11 unique visits yesterday, in case you weren't curious.) I have mulled themes for other blogs I could write. I have had conversations with my wife about my "followers," especially the mysterious "kt" who is the only one I don't know personally; or, at least, I don't know if I know "kt." (Bless her, my wife Jen is patient and mostly finds me amusing in my geeky moments.)

Worst of all, I have realized that I have entered that self-reflective/neurotic/narcissitic zone that (very rarely) produces great writing but almost always produces the sort of self-involved, not-that-interesting-or-amusing-or-unusual tripe that I had pledged to avoid. Oops.

Anyway, that's at the heart of why I don't have a cell phone. Because if I weren't slightly anti-techno-stuff (like with cell phones), I'd be over the top techno-OCD (like with el bloggo). And the world's a better place as things stand.

And maybe, just maybe, part of the reason we have such a hard time hearing God these days is that a voice that speaks in sheer silence chooses not to compete with the damnable Bluetooth shoved in our ear.

Thanks to my beloved friend Eilidh for the inspiration.

much peace, much love, etc.
Clay

*This is an awkwardly written, unnecessaily long setence. And it uses "stand" and "notwithstanding" in close proximity, which is irksome. But I'm leaving it. Take that, Junior High English teachers!