Focusing hard…

Ever noticed how getting someone’s attention in full is practically an impossibility? There was a time, not so long ago, when you had to make intelligent conversation for the most part (not withstanding the occasional drunken ramble – and aren’t those awesome? I’ve been told about everything from the sizes of people underclothes to clandestine affair details to secret religious beliefs over the years. Deliciously juicy… but I’m rambling ;)). Because, back then, people listened to you. And judged you wholeheartedly if you were a. boring b. stupid or god forbid c. a windbag. Oh the tags were endless if you look back and recall a little.

Today though, thanks to the modern miracle of technology, we’ve been set free haven’t we? We’re always got half an eye on a screen and most of a ear out for a beguiling ‘ping’ telling us someone out there loves us more that the people we’re with. Gosh, what if I miss that inane comment someone made about someone else on still someone else’s status update. Or worse still, missed actual direct contact with my fourteenth cousin eight times removed on my mum’s side as she sends me an IM saying she’s rolled out of bed and plans to brush her teeth in a few minutes. I mean what would I do without that info?

People can actually live quite happily without talking to anyone today. Whole decision making convos are typed out in something vaguely resembling English. Where letters god never intended to be put next to each other are forced to coexist in harmony. And are so excited about it, they pull out industrial quantities of punctuation to accompany them!!! I mean I even saw a chick miss The Hulk manhandle a lesser god, while she checked out a text which probably told her about how she’d win a bar of peanut brittle if she was the thirty second gazzilionth person to walk into XYZ uber-fashion on the third Sunday after World-lets-all-own-a-smart-phone-day.

Sarcasm aside, I think its super liberating. Now we get to be as unfocussed as we like on things. The commitment to commitment can die a peaceful death and we can just flit around being the masters of halfhearted multitasking. Awesome!!