Creeping Toward Isolation

Americans are slowly but surely crawling under rocks and shutting out the rest of the world.

It's true. I don't know if I can aim that just at Americans, but the fact remains: We are doing everything we can to isolate ourselves from any human contact we don't absolutely need.

I don't know about you, but the only time I interact with a human at a gas station is when I get the "See Attendant" message on the pump or when my receipt won't print. I seriously can't think of 5 times when I have actually paid for gas with cash and talked to a human in the last 10 years.

It's the computer age that propelled it all into reality, but it's our constant quest for labor-savings that led us that direction. We as Americans are always looking for an easier way to get something done. Even better would be something that is fully automatic. We love that stuff.

Thanks to our personal computers and the Internet, we no longer have to go shopping at a store and deal with stupid salespeople, parking lot snarls, or bad weather. We can just click the mouse and wait for it to show up in the mail. What? Your online order is taking too long? No problem--Just log on and "track" your order instead of calling someone up and interacting with them. We can now do all our grocery shopping online if we want to. Gone is the chance of meeting that special someone in the produce department at your local grocery store and tossing that clever double-entendre' about a cucumber. We now bank online, renew driver's licenses online, start services online, even pay our bills online.

The computers have also given us the ability to meet people online. No longer do we have to suffer all that social awkwardness and stumbling over what to say in person. We can email, fax, web cam, and instant message someone from the safety of our own personal space.

Don't forget our little metal air-conditioned personal transportation/isolation cubicles. Without a doubt, the worst offender of societal isolation we have at our disposal. Yes, I'm talking about our cars. By owning a car, we have effectively given ourselves the ability to shut out the rest of the world. We close the doors and lock them, roll up the windows, turn on the air conditioning or heater. What, you can hear something outside of your personal isolation cubicle? You forgot to turn up your music for maximum isolation. Back in the day of horse and buggies, people would pass each other at a reasonable pace, fully exposed to everything around them. In the time it took for two people to pass each other, they could actually have a full dialogue between them, and as they neared the limit of their hearing, could still shout a 'good day 'as they continued onward. It's not so bad in the warmer climates where people have windows down--They have a little more possibility of human interaction. When someone cuts us off while driving and necessitates our desire to 'interact' with the offender, we can always roll up our window and hit the gas when we've interacted too much and compromised our safety.

The one that really makes me jealous is telecommuting. That is the final straw between finally cutting yourself off from the rest of the world. Wearing pajamas (if even that) all day and calling it work. Ha.

Sigh. I guess it's time to go interact at the workplace.