Incident I : Few colleagues are out for team lunch. Decent food. More or less a crowded restaurant. Pin drop silence between all of them. Heads down. Eyes on their phone screen! Not even a joke. Not even any conversation apart from deciding what to eat and how much to pay!
Incident II : Few friends. A get together. Good music. Laughter. However, every few minutes everyone's hands take out the secret device and be into it, nibble on the screen or just type!
Various such incidents. The same thing. Somewhere we are together physically and still flying away somewhere far in the virtual world. Heads down. Eyes glued on to the screen.
Is there s treasure inside the device? Or probably, we are about to hit a jackpot? May be!
Or may be, are we expecting fire somewhere? Or probably the best ever news?
Not always so. Then whats the issue? Do we feel lonely and make a busy virtual world around us as a protection shield? Or are we not so socially comfortable thus avoid any communication with the people around us?
We enjoy less. We absorb less. We show more.
Most of us do so. Before we eat in a restaurant, we start taking pictures with our smart phones or sometimes cameras too. Before we met and talk to our friends, we pose and get clicked. Sometime we don't even talk. We are happy just being clicked!
Going back to my childhood. Not too long ago. There used to be the land line phones. And a happy Sunday. When we used to make the long distance calls to our near and dear ones, had hearty conversations. And the conversation used to be straight from heart - not just for sake of talking.
Giving every minute updates was not that important. Important was to say, we are there, even if we speak once a week or once a month, you mean so much for me!
These days, we whats app, we BBM, we WeChat and Viber and so on and so forth, I dont even know... Are they really that meaningful and straight from heart? Or we are doing it because we have the "app" so lets do it.
I was crossing a post office that day! What a nostalgic feeling. Remember exchanging so many letters with my friends and cousins and pen friends too. Making them beautiful with colours, some crafts, some special element. That special touch - to mean "you are special".
Of course, we don't write letters anymore. One text is enough. That personal touch, that small little drawings on the letter, the special letter pads - do we still know them today? Probably not.
The more advance the communications technology is becoming, the small little special touch is going missing somewhere. We are there and yet we are missing. We talk the whole day and probably every moment we are connected yet so disconnected with most of the people. Are we drifting apart gradually? Do we still sit and listen carefully? Each and every word, each and every emotion of our loved ones? Or probably enjoy just random texts to multiple people!
Lets value people who are with us, near us. And lets value people who are away as well. Its not about spending time with as many people as possible. Its about spending quality time with the ones who mean a lot to us and for whom we are special.
Life is all about time, limited resource! Value it. Spend wisely! Dont miss that special touch! That makes life really special.
(** the image used is a random googled image)
