I was saying to a couple of my Goodboys pals a couple of weeks ago how much I wanted to be off the grid. No e-mails, no blog, no phone, no tablet, no desktop, no laptop – nothing to connect me to a digital world that has seemingly become a part of every friggin’ part of our lives from waking to sleeping. I’m guessing I’m in the minority when I say I’m tired of technology. Sure, I make my living off of it, but it brings me no joy to have to use it. To me, it’s just a necessary means to an end – the world now evolves around Twitter, e-mail, YouTube, and Dropbox, and you have to play the game or get trampled down by it.

Of course, it’s not technology in and of itself that’s the problem – it’s the fact that you increasingly can’t get away from it for one blasted minute that’s the problem. Oh, and that on the other end of it you know there is a human being or corporation of human beings who don’t necessarily have your, mine, or anyone’s best interests at heart. Technology may be a convenience or means to an end, but what we do with it is nothing more than an excuse for other human beings to exploit it for their own ends and purposes. Sure, there are always advancements in technologies that make our lives better (especially when it comes to modern medicine), but technology in and of itself will never fix everything that afflicts a world with human beings running it. Sure, technology has made our world smaller – but tell that to the children living in the slums of Asia and other the hellholes in the so-called “Third World”. The poor and destitute will always be with us, as will those suffering from mental illness, and poverty, and technology ain’t gonna be able to do a thing about it.

…but you will be able to see or read more about it because of the internet, right?

I would argue that in some – if not most – ways technology has become a necessary evil, a tool for every faceless, nameless, and nobody whack job who thinks that by having an Instagram or Youtube account they’re somebody. The truth is, they’re not. They’re just people with an opinion. And, in most cases, moronic opinions at that.

My biggest concern is that you have technology replacing true human interaction. At our core we’re not machines, we’re human beings. We need a connection with each other. Deep down, our souls, hearts and minds thirst for a human connection. You can have a million followers on your Twitter account and still be the loneliest person in the world. We need to be able to share our own different lives, upbringings, thoughts, cultures, and selves with other people. That’s how you grow up exposed, with an open mind and understanding of how human beings tick. The kids growing up these days, sheltered behind technology and its way of segregating those who are like-minded, are going to grow up functionally illiterate and in practice ignorant. And they’re learning well from their moronic parents who walk around supermarket aisles like Stepford wives and drive around with their heads down, texting who knows who, thinking their very lives evolve around some stupid form of electronic communication. It’s really a sickness, and one I want no part of.

Nevertheless, there I was yesterday with the twins at the local AT&T store trying to figure out the most strategic and fiscally astute way to upgrade Tracey’s iPhone and drag Tammy and I and our dumb phones into to the future. After the better part of ninety minutes of debate and haggling, Tracey got her much-needed upgrade (to an iPhone 8), and Tam and I are to enter the 21st century and get iPhone 6s – gasp!. While I really didn’t want to, in the end it just made sense: the world wasn’t going to change or slow done technologically on my behalf, and at some point you just have to embrace the grid.

I really don’t know anything about my soon-to-arrive iPhone 6; I suppose like everyone else five or ten years back I’ll just kind of go with whatever cool functionality that comes along with it and then get sucked into the vortex of every friggin’ app you can download so you can brag about what you have like everyone else does. I hope I don’t go that far. I’m really being dragged kicking and screaming, because it just goes against everything I want to do or be in my life. Deep down, all I really want to do is go off the grid.

Hey, maybe on my new iPhone 6 I’ll find an app for that.