Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward - Trying to live a life out of the comfort zone

In the World today there are two classes of people: those who love technology and those who reject it. There is no middle ground.

I clearly belong in the first group and therefore I cannot understand those who call being in an area without email and internet coverage “rest”. That is my definition of “stress”! To the lover of technology there is no bigger feeling of peace of mind than an empty Inbox for being up-to-date. That is why the Blackberry (or iPhone) is our best friend!

In my annual trip with friends this year, as we waited on a long plane delay, we were all totally absorbed with our BBs. I acknowledge the view might look ugly. But there are few things as nice as a good email session shared with friends. Some of you will understand what I mean. At some point, I started sending them Blackberry Messengers and we even had a dialog for a while.

In the old days I used to get mad when a red light stopped while driving. No my beloved BB comes to the rescue and gives me the gift of a precious minute to read/write email or sms, watch how the stock market is doing in Bangkok or read the latest news from the online newspaper. I still haven’t gotten to the point of wishing for a red light, but that cannot be too far away.

And this “red light principle” can be extended to many other orders of life: there are “death times” all over the place. Before I got impatient, I got bored. Now, faster than I can think of it, my hand grabs the BB and -Bam!- I am “producing”, I am having fun.

What an invention the sms is! No more of that fake: “How are you?”, followed in the best case by a merciful “Fine, and you?” but opening the door to the biggest fear: that someone may actually answer the question and start talking about anything. The sms goes straight to the point. “See you at 3pm at Louie’s”. “OK”. Ain’t that beautiful? Less is more.

And the most hated thing of all… Those persons who, when you send them an sms, instead of replying they call you!!! Don’t they realize that if I wanted to talk to them I would have called myself???

I have to acknowledge, though, that grabbing the BB has become a bit of a reflex act to me. There is something addictive to it. Sometimes I find myself moving my hand towards it when there is no actual “dead time” and my attention should be somewhere else. It is not my head that gives the order and commands my hand. When that happens, I use my strong will and refrain. “Not now” I tell her. And she respects my decision. She understands.

But sometimes I am weak. Like those occasions when, I confess, I cannot wait for the red light and I read (or even write) while driving. In any case, I have been driving for almost 20 years and I never even had a scratch. And my car has Automatic Transmission, so there is a hand I actually don’t need.

Meanwhile, the other part of the population is left out. They bore to death on red lights, check email at Cyber-cafes or whenever they find a computer, live chronically running from behind and -worst of all!- they don’t care!

That strange people looks at us with despair, does not understand our pleasure, is left out of the party. And they don’t realize that in this World that we are living in “the survival of the fittest” has been replaced by “the survival of the most connected”. Darwin will soon send them the invoice for that.

Note: part of this post is a joke. Part is serious. I leave it to you to tell what is what. In any case, it is autobiographical.

Photo: backroadshutterbug