Answer the Phone!

When was the last time you called someone outside of your normal circle? You know what I mean, someone who isn’t programmed into your cell phone and who wouldn’t know your number if it came up on their caller ID. Did they answer your call? Did you expect them to or did you have a message already in mind? If the situation were reversed, would you have answered the call? I ask these questions because in recent years, I’ve noticed that I’m leaving messages more frequently and I’m answering the phone less when I don’t know who’s on the other end. Just yesterday we were calling the parents of a few of our son’s friends to invite them to his birthday party. Nobody answered their phones. Incidentally, the thought has occurred to me that people just aren’t answering my calls, but I don’t think that’s the case.

So, how come nobody answers their phones anymore? Of course, sometimes people are unavailable, out of the house, in the bathroom or shower, maybe even knockin’ boots in which case, please don’t take my call and by all means continue. I’ll call you later. Also, I understand that sometimes, a person just wants to be left alone, totally understandable. I think that if you ask most folks they would say that they’re tired of telemarketers so they just don’t answer the phone at all anymore, likewise with bill collectors and such, though caller ID really negates all of that. Anyway, that seems to be the reason why everybody call screens, phone borne spam. I call bullshit.

Like most things, the lack of phone answering is a symptom of something else. This is always about that. There’s a canned response here too, isn’t there? “Well with current electronic media, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, and all that there’s not as much need to…” Whatever. Now, all of that may be true, but it’s also true that Facebook et al allow for very tightly controlled access to our profiles. I have to “approve” my friends and I can block access to my Twitter updates which are usually something intensely private like “Drinking coffee” or “Off to Target.” In truth, we don’t want people in our lives and likewise, we don’t want to be in theirs. We bemoan the lack of community, but screen our calls and make sure that our electronic profiles have as many privacy filters as possible.

This obviously just leads to another “Why do we do that?” I can’t think of any reason except that we’re all afraid of each other. So why are we afraid of each other? It’s an environment we’ve created for ourselves, and a profitable one. How many people make a living out of “keeping us safe.” I’m not talking about at the national level, but at the personal. Home alarms, private security, guns, nanny cams, home security cameras, home monitoring, car alarms, lojack, and on and on we go. And we’re not just afraid of each other, but the world at large and I don’t mean terrorists. Flesh eating virus, anyone? How many more people are employed in maintaining that state of fear? I would guess probably a quarter to a third of the country is working hard to make us feel safe while at the same time clearly demonstrating how unsafe we really are in order to keep sales or ratings up. The national level is much the same but with bigger numbers.

Of course there’s a trade off all of this safety, and the real cost there is compassion. Of all the resources we have, compassion seems to be the most scarce to me. Why don’t we answer each other’s calls, we don’t care. “I don’t have time for somebody else’s problems; I’ve got problems of my own.” Really? We have time to watch Jon and Kate and that implosion, but we can’t talk to each other? We can poke fun at them, I guess. Some guy collapses in front of you outside the mall, do you help him or keep your distance for fear AIDS, Hepatitis, being mugged, being raped, or any of the various kinds of animal flu? Fuck, I don’t even know what I’d do.

I know people who think that the biggest threat to this country is terrorism, others who think it’s globalization in the financial world, and even more who think that ultimately our demise will be due to the erosion of morals and family values coupled with the over-celebration of diversity which fractures society thus destroying us like cancer from the inside. I guess I probably disagree. They can all make strong arguments that I can’t necessarily answer but I think that if we ultimately fail, it will be because we’re stopped caring about each other altogether and have started classify each other into various threat levels.

I’m not anti-corporation, anti-police, anti-military, or anti-anything for that matter, except maybe anti-stupid and that’s what I think we’re being a lot of the time. I’m not saying don’t watch your kids, or don’t be careful or anything like that, just be a damn human being. Recognize humanity in others and act accordingly. Don’t be so afraid of other people, they’re most likely just like you, trying to get through life. And for God sakes, answer your phone, there’s more a chance that the person on the other end is normal, healthy, and okay than there is that it’s a threat of some kind. Unless you’re getting it on, then don’t answer the phone, we’ll call you back.

(c) Carl T. Mealie, 2009