Fahrenheit 451

It never fails to amaze me. 

I clumsily wrench my stroller onto the brown line, the station one block west and one block south of our little first floor, one bedroom apartment, with a child bursting to everyone around about the twain! and the zoo! and the zebas! and the graffes! and the elphants! and...nobody even looks at him. One middle-aged woman might crack a smile for a split second, asking politely what his name is and his age, but then it's back to the device: ipod, ipad, iphone. The key is 'I'. Not you, us, we. I. 

We didn't have internet for a few days, and, being new to the city, I have been unable to get a library card - apparently here the desire to read is not as important as a proof of address. I feel sorry for the homeless bums - surely a library subscription could give them something more meaningful to do than just sit all day on the sidewalk begging or spewing crazy words out as you pass by. Anyway, this lack of ability to research articles online or read books on my bed during my sons nap time became very draining. With nothing to read, nothing to research, and no way of communicating during two hours everyday, I became a scrapbook fiend - a ritual I save only for Sunday, usually, and a routine with which I quickly became bored. I love scrapbooking. I enjoy reliving each memory as I paste it, ceremoniously, into an aesthetically pleasing design and jot a few shallow thoughts and feelings of the events illustrated. But doing two mindless pages a day every day, when I am used to only doing one a week, was simply too much. I became frantic: my mind begged for stimulation. I ran to the local thrift store and bought the first interesting looking book I saw. Two pages into it, I realized it was drab unworthy of even returning to the thrift and threw every last 25 cents of it into the trash. I normally treasure my quarters, as they are vital to my weekly laundry procedure, but that quarter was the slimiest, low moral quarter I'd ever read. 

So then I was back to where I started, back at the discount village, scanning the aisles of books, this time more carefully - more prejudiced. I found multiple titles I was sure were good - books on old AP literature lists, whose prose have stood the test of time. 

And I found Fahrenheit 451.  

I believe Ray Bradbury was inspired.

White seashell ear thimbles, he calls them - stuck in everyone's ears, droning music and programs, and making everyone excellent lip-readers. Parlor walls - which aren't walls, actually, but huge TV screens, which people watch together, and whose friendships and discussions are based solely on those shows. And school classes completely done via video screen - no actual discussion, just virtual interaction. 

All of these things, he illustrates in his book, have pulled the humanity out of people, shifted us from being social, interactive people, to being consumed in ourselves. We are so busy 'talking' on our phones and laptops and social networks, that we forget to talk to the real people in front of us, on the train. We are so plugged into our various TV programs, that all we have to talk about is what happened on those shows. And we are so plugged into our various music devices that we can only lip-read. We don't actually listen to each other anymore.

We are a society so 'connected' that we have become completely disconnected from each other. And Ray Bradbury foreshadowed it all 60 years ago, during "I Love Lucy" and the Cleaver times. 

I can't help but wonder when the wide-spread book burning will occur...