Out with the new, in with the old
things i did to get back in touch with humanity
When he departed as food critic of the New York Times, Pete Wells wrote an essay titled “I Reviewed Restaurants for 12 Years. They’ve Changed, and Not for the Better.” In it, he talks about how he misses the days when you’d pick up the phone and call into a restaurant for a reservation.
Before we walk in the door, we’ve usually made a reservation on a screen. You could still make reservations by phone in 2012. Many places were on OpenTable by then, but if you didn’t feel like using it or couldn’t find a time you wanted, you picked up the phone, and your call would usually be answered by a human. Pleasantries were exchanged. Polite phrases were used: Please. Thank you. I’m sorry. We look forward to seeing you.
When I first read this, I didn’t get it. I’ve always hated phone calls. There is just something nerve-wracking about listening to the ring tone, not knowing when the person on the other end will pick up. Then the dead air when you run out of questions, unable to see the other person’s body language. It was good that we had online reservation apps. They had taken the awkwardness out of the equation.
It was the same with Uber and Lyft, which made it so much easier to call a car rather than waiting in line for a taxi or hopelessly trying to flag one down. And now, there’s a future where Waymo might replace them too, making what had been a low-friction solution even more low-friction. It is so easy to take one. Easy to open the doors without saying a word to anyone and watch the world go by through tinted glass. No small talk, no tips, no eye contact, just you and the robot car. We might soon end up in a future where we go to work and talk to people through screens, then leave work and walk among masses of people with their AirPods or Meta Raybans, on our way to take an autonomous vehicle home, talking to nobody, our faces oriented towards the lights of our phones. The noise, the hustle and bustle of life, become mere irritations that can be muted or removed altogether.
Lately, I have been wondering if my mission to avoid awkwardness has also turned into avoiding humanity. What did we used to do when we were caught out at a party without a phone in our hands? How did we distract ourselves? Of course it was excruciating, the embarrassment of being someone apart from the crowd. But that moment was also a grim becoming. Understanding that you were different, accepting that there were some places you didn’t belong. In some cases, finding fellow loners in the crowd.
It’s incredible what our phones allow us to do, but it’s also created a way for us to manipulate the world and shape it to the dimensions we want. I feel a little frightened when I step onto the subway and see everyone in the same zombie posture, lost in a world where they can scroll past things that don’t interest them, a simple flick of the finger rearranging their tiny world. I fear that we’re retreating from the rhythms of a real life, and forgetting how to actually live.
A Wall Street Journal article talked about how college kids are using “Notice of No Contact” orders to block each other, rather than deal with confrontation. NCOs were used as tools in Title IX cases, stalking, and domestic violence, but on college campuses the breadth of the policy has expanded:
If only life were like the internet may not be a fantasy for most, but for young adults whose social lives evolved in the digital age, the idea clearly has some appeal. It’s far easier to swipe right to show romantic interest than to approach another student after class. Much cleaner to ghost or block people you can’t stand than to physically dodge them at every party, especially when sharing the same small college campus.
I fear confrontation as much as anyone else, and I can’t imagine growing up in the world as it is now, where everything is so polarizing and overwhelming. I don’t know where the line is between what we should be forced to bear, and what we are allowed to ignore.
The speed that we get information also has made trends proliferate. So many new things are just a version of history with a new label slapped on. Dystopian fiction seems to be coming back. Yes, romantasy is a thing now, but we used to have paranormal romance. I got to a point where I began feeling fatigued by the Goodreads newsletters I got every month, blasting me with books that I should read, many with similarly-textured covers and premises that bled into one another. I would never be able to crest the wave of new content, and so much of it was just the same. The same trends, the same tropes, the same things that had already been validated by the market.
It’s like seeing all the billboards in San Francisco, which have all been refreshed to include AI in some way, shape, or form. Come the next buzzy keyword, they’ll find a way to insert that, too. There’s also this one, which made me laugh:
As someone living in San Francisco, I like observing the duality. The isolation of technology and the colorfulness of so many people crammed into one city.
My own rebellion has been to return to the old things, instead of being sucked into the endless cycle of new, new, new. Here are some of the things I’ve done lately that have helped me feel a little more grounded:
Getting a library card. It’s helped me rediscover old books I never got around to reading.
Leaving the phone at home when I go for a walk.
Taking public transit more. Looking at the people sitting on the seats around me (but not too long because I don’t want to start something), and saying thanks to the bus driver when I get off.
In that vein, observing the people around me. Looking at what they’re wearing or doing, and wondering at them a bit, if only for a respite from my own life.
Going through my old clothes from my childhood home and adding some of them back to my closet instead of buying new ones.
Calling up old friends on the phone—phone calls are still weird to me, but they’re actually such a great way to connect with someone far away. There’s something warming about hearing the voice of someone you love, even if you can’t see them.
What does all of this have to with writing? Nothing and everything. How do we write with feeling if we numb ourselves to feeling anything in our own lives? How can we create realistic character arcs if we duck away from the challenge of our own character growth? Sometimes, returning to the old feels like returning to my roots.
—Sophie
Something I wrote today:
Silver hair curls around a shadowed face, obscured by the black hood of his cape. I see high cheekbones, the sharp arch of collarbones through the fur at his neck. Every part of him seems to have been rubbed against a whetstone. Then he tips his head back, his hood falling, and I inhale sharply. Remembering the eyes I saw in the woods.