Longing for Simpler Times

I suspect this essay will not win me any friends. Nor will it attract much approbation.

I am past 75 years old and consciously moving into a new phase of life — and I need to conclude my last. This stark reality has presented me with questions of how I wish to spend the rest of my life.

I have always affirmed that though we are innately social beings, we retain a precious and refreshing element of autonomy. We can make choices, including choices as to how we wish to direct our lives. To a limited degree, as the sculptor who chips away at the marble, we can mold ourselves into the type of person we wish to be. Indeed, it is the reality of choice that serves as the dynamic tool that enables the molding.

At this stage, there are two foundational experiences that shape my life. The first is that I am almost completely retired from gainful employment. Some people fear retirement, anxious that they will be without the structure that work provided, leaving them bereft of meaningful things to do. I have had no such fear. My professional life has been profoundly fulfilling and meaningful. Yet, I have discovered that being without the unceasing multitude of obligations my work required, my new retired state is surprisingly and delightfully liberatory.

The second experience is my engagement with a new partner. It is a loving, wonderful relationship that has been a source of unbounded happiness. Finding love at this stage of life is worthy of an additional essay of its own. But, one point I am compelled to share, is that love and intimacy enable me, and my partner, to transcend age. We are both in our seventies, but in ways that matter most, that fact is irrelevant.

At this stage, I am interested in simplifying my life. It is commonplace that in younger decades, as life moves upwards, people often are interested in accumulation – amassing more wealth, buying a home, and owning more in the service of attaining security. With old age comes a desire to rid oneself of clutter and material things that accrue less satisfaction. Experience supersedes possession; being matters more than having. I am committed to deepening my experiences with caring friends. I seek out more quality time with family. I read more, and writing, of which you are a beneficiary, has become an engaging practice that brings quiet fulfillment.

But another conscious choice I have made is to spend less time looking at screens. This choice is a product of both temperament and philosophical principles that have guided my life. By conviction, I have long identified myself as a humanist. And though humanism has had many meanings, in this instance I mean it to signify an abiding and moving appreciation for the indwelling humanity of persons, both with others with whom I engage and with myself in my introspective moments. I have written before that one of the most important experiences I seek is to be in the presence of a good friend and to share our interiorities; to get beyond words to movingly grasp the subjectivity of the person in my presence. I see this as a type of this-worldly transcendence. I speculate that this may be what the philosopher Martin Buber was describing in his contrasting the I-it relationship with the I-Thou relation. The former perceives the other as an object. The latter involves engaging subjectivities while the other as object falls away.

Humanism is often defined as a philosophy or way of life that does not uphold any dogma. It recognizes that reality is in perpetual flux. Yet humanist that I am, I do subscribe to at least one dogma. It is the conviction that the highest form of human relations takes place in real- time face-to-face relations. In this sense, I am suggesting a hierarchy of human relations, with personal meeting the highest form. There is no equivalent substitute; not telephoning, emailing, Zooming, or even penning a heartfelt letter. To be in the presence of another is to hear the intonation of her voice. It is to view her gestures. It is to perceive her body language, either overtly or subliminally.

It is this conviction that causes me to abjure the overuse of screens, whether computer monitors or the ubiquitous iPhone. And ubiquitous it is. Driving often in New York City, and coming to a stoplight, I witness lines of people hurriedly crisscrossing the street in front of me. I can’t help but notice that large numbers, usually more than half, are gazing down at their cell phones as they do. Others, not looking at their phones at the moment, carry them in hand as if they are an inseparable extension of their anatomy. New York City presents a feast for the eyes. But rather than taking in the sights, immersing themselves in their surroundings, or enjoying the humanity passing them by, they are separating themselves from their environment. Cell phones, quite obviously, allow a person to be situated physically in one place while simultaneously absenting oneself to be in another. Perhaps I am the only one, but I can’t help but conclude that there is something weird about this. Weird and unfortunate.

Social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Anxious Generation, has penned a powerful and impassioned treatise on how the fixation with smartphones and social media have rewired the minds of teenagers and radically disrupted childhood. Excessive time with digital technologies has led to an explosion of anxiety, depression, and self-cutting, especially among girls, and an increase in suicides. The inflection point was the 2010s, which correlated with the introduction of smartphones. The transition was reflected in the move from “play-based childhood” to “phone-based childhood.” As Haidt notes,

“Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable and…unsuitable for children and adolescents. Succeeding socially in that universe required them to devote a large part of their consciousness –perpetually – to managing what became their online brand. This was now necessary to gain acceptance from peers, which is the oxygen of adolescence, and to avoid online shaming, which is the nightmare of adolescence. Gen Z teens got sucked into spending many hours of each day scrolling through the shiny happy posts of friends, acquaintances, and distant influencers. They watched increasing quantities of user-generated videos and streamed entertainment, offered to them by autoplay and algorithms that were designed to keep them online as long as possible. They spent far less time playing with, talking to, or even making eye contact with their friends and families, thereby reducing their participation in embodied social behaviors that are essential for successful human development.”

While the effects of digital technologies and the ubiquity of screens are most pronounced among teenagers who are passing developmentally through an especially sensitive stage, we can conclude that their consequences are felt among older generations as well. A friend whose professional work involved organizing discussion groups among professional people in their late 20s in home settings reported to me the difficulty he encountered in merely having people talk with each other face to face. It was as if an experience so basic to our humanity had become somewhat foreign.

Much has recently been written about the destructive effects of social media in particular, and I don’t claim any special insight. But as one who is extremely concerned about the political dangers we confront, I need to conclude that social media is a major detriment.

It was John Stuart Mill who influentially affirmed that freedom and diversity of opinions would eventuate in the emergence of the best ideas. It was a powerful argument in favor of freedom and is commensurate with democracy. Yet social media, rather than providing a net expansion of salutary ideas, has worked to silo viewpoints and target recipients in a way that reinforces biases. It fails to expand a user’s opinions by exposure to ideas that challenge them. It leaves misinformation and lies uncontested. And it has fomented extremism and conspiracies. Rather than evoke information gathering and the acquisition of knowledge through discourse, it manipulates information by algorithm. While building bonds between those holding similar views, thereby augmenting what has become virulent tribalism, it fails to inspire dialogue across lines and communities of difference. It sows social distrust writ large.

No doubt, social media have benefits. The horse is long out of the barn and the digital technologies have long been enmeshed into the foundations of our modern world. We are at a uniquely dangerous political moment, and though our threatening situation has many causes, I conclude that social media have most potently refined and propelled them. One can ask whether Mill’s premise, essential to an open, free, and progressive society, still holds, or whether it has been overwhelmed by the deluge of information and misinformation the social media produce. How one answers this question may bring with it existential consequences with regard to sustaining a free and democratic society.

Despite their blandishments, the aforementioned negatives, and others, dampen my interest in engaging social media platforms. They don’t enchant. Nor do screen-based technologies. In the pursuit of knowledge, I still have the newspaper delivered daily to my door. I subscribe to at least a dozen magazines spanning a range of interests, and my night table is piled high with books waiting to be read.

I have long believed that if one really wants to know something, one needs to take a deep dive into texts. By temperament, I rebel against the soundbite, headline, and Twitter culture.

As the bard would have it, it is “a brave new world,” but it is one that I choose to enter only tentatively and with reservation. I know, therefore, that I leave myself vulnerable to the aspersions of others. I can be accused of being a “Neanderthal,” a “troglodyte,” and more to the point, a “technophobe.” But I deny being averse to technology. I marvel at the wizardry of modern science and technology, which wins my admiration while extending far beyond my ken.

Again, there are always choices to be made and I have made my own. As I move ahead, I have chosen to employ digital technologies only to the extent that I need them. I refuse to become ensnared by them or addicted to them. I don’t turn to them to redress boredom. This general decision plays itself out in several practices I have set for myself that steadily have grown into habits:

– I adhere to the adage that the medium is the message. The content of a message suggests the appropriate vehicle by which to convey it. I find electronic media officious. If a loved one dies, it is not something I feel should be communicated in a tweet or a text message. A phone call I find is far more appropriate. When acts of caring elicit gratitude I think that a handwritten note is more apt than an email. I remain moved when I receive such notes from friends and feel impelled to do the same (with a fountain pen, no less).

– I don’t read long articles on screens, If more than two pages, I copy them and read the printed page.

– I don’t engage in lengthy, content-based discussions on email, especially with more than a single individual. Email is great for setting up meetings. Extensive conversations with several discussants become awkward and desultory, and I find it irksome to rope them in.

– I don’t take out my cell phone in social situations unless, together with others, I am researching an issue intrinsic to the conversation, or I am expecting a call that is especially urgent. (Parents of dependent children can be exempted from this provision). If I am with a friend or a small group, I adhere to the norm that people who are present at the moment take priority over the people who are not. Perhaps it is a lack of patience, but I find myself irked by those who interrupt a conversation to take a call. It breaks up the flow of discourse, and it strikes me as rude (OK, this is where I lose friends). I see it as no different than if, at a gathering, I were to pull out my newspaper while turning away from those in my company. When my own phone rings, I let the message go to voice mail. After all, technology has offered us multiple retrieval devices and this is what they are for. Yet interruption by cell phone has become normative in our culture. In my view, it is another way in which we rend the social bond. It is a small but pervasive step in leaving people more alone and ultimately isolated.

As we travel through life, we all project images of the type of person we are and want to be. Our modern life has become overwhelmingly complex and coping with its complexity brings its frustrations. Much of it I strive to master. But at this stage of life, I have set myself on a course toward simplification. It is a matter of paring and focus. When it comes to pursuing happiness, I often find less is better.