{"id":624730,"date":"2023-04-02T09:49:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-02T14:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/02\/screen-time-a-ridiculous-april-1-rhyme\/"},"modified":"2023-04-02T09:49:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T14:49:18","slug":"screen-time-a-ridiculous-april-1-rhyme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/02\/screen-time-a-ridiculous-april-1-rhyme\/","title":{"rendered":"Screen Time: A ridiculous April 1 rhyme"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/figure>\n

In 2007, when phones began changing,
\nMy mother engaged in some life rearranging.
\nA client of hers used some “herbal” pomade,
\nThen he itched and he burned and he swore and he swayed.
\nHis hair all fell out and it hurt when he sat,
\nHe was owed, he complained, compensation for that.
\nMy mother agreed, and it came out at trial:
\nThe “herb” in the cream was your basic yak bile,
\nWell known for its harm to follicular lining
\nBut cheap when you needed to keep male hair shining.
\nSo mom won her case ‘gainst the maker of hair gel,
\nAnd got a promotion and started to buy. Well\u2014
\nShe bought a red car, a blue dress, and a Shih Tzu
\nWith money that being made partner<\/em> will get you.
\nShe purchased a lake house, a boat, and two skis,
\nBooked space on a flight known for pulling 6 Gs,
\nShe joined Junior League and a gym called “The FitZone”
\nBut bigger change came when she snapped up that iPhone.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Watching Steve Jobs in his black shirt and jeans
\nAs he pitched the rectangular slab of her dreams,
\nShe saw in his spiel the last item she needed,
\nto keep her life’s lawn well-cut, watered, and weeded,
\nThe one thing she lacked that would make her complete:
\nA phone that would mark her among the elite.
\nShe used it for voice calls, text messages, maps,
\nAnd\u2014when Jobs allowed it\u2014then even for apps.
\nAt first she took pleasure in whipping it out,
\nBut soon she had questions; later came doubt.
\nMoving through life needed motion and sass,
\nBut here she was now, just swiping on glass.
\nOn subways, in cars, while at church, in the bar,
\nShe stuck to that phone like one mired in tar,
\nUnable to extricate finger or eye,
\nCaught like a mammoth just waiting to die.
\nThe things in her life that were golden and green
\nSoon looked beige and boring set next to that screen.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

My dad was a “writer”\u2014I put that in quotes,
\nSince he never wrote anything longer than notes,
\nThat went in my lunchbox or in my mom’s purse;
\nWhen we left the house, he just stayed in and cursed.
\nWriter’s block had long blocked him from living his genius,
\nA bona fide, certified, true act of meanness
\nDoled out by a cosmos so fickle and foul
\nThat it blessed dad with bricks but provided no trowel.
\nHe cooked all our meals, cleaned our clothes, skimmed our pool
\nWore green sneakers, red glasses, and had a strict rule
\nAgainst washing his jeans\u2014said it messed with the denim\u2014
\nBut under the cool lay a thin streak of venom.
\nSo mom went to work and she brought home the bacon,
\nWhile dad stayed inside on a long-term vacation.
\nA self-proclaimed “genius” who\u2019s blocked might start drinking,
\nWhen hopes and raw talent both feel like they’re sinking
\nBut rather than going the Hemingway route,
\nDad scooped up the bottles and threw them all out.
\nHe holed up instead in the den with a TV,
\nA seventy-five inch reflective monstrosity,
\nLoudly proclaiming to any who’d listen
\nThat prestige TV’s “golden age” had arisen.
\nHe hatched a keen plan to watch every minute
\nOf every long series with “real actors” in it.
\nForget those new novels, forget those old poems,
\nAnd don’t even mention the biblical tomes.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Hollywood offered the realest life lessons:
\nThe Ts and the As and the Smiths and the Wessons;
\nHearts on parade; life’s jocularity;
\ndrugs sold in Baltimore; peace, love, and charity.
\nBut\u2014
\nWhenever I happened to peek in the door
\nHe seemed to be lying asleep on the floor,
\nReality shows were binge-blasting above him,
\nGreat British bakers with great British muffins.
\nThe “truth” TV showed him was older than dirt:
\nSpend your life lying down and your soul starts to hurt.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

If they were both addicts, I remained clean;
\nLife still had a sheen that out-shined any screen.
\nI read and I built and I played\u2014then repeated,
\nWhile they binge-watched Frasier<\/i> or read what they\u2019d tweeted.
\nBut one bright blue day, I could take it no more,
\nA dim indoor life was both safe and a bore.
\nSo I put down my book and I rose from the couch,
\nWent outside, climbed a tree, slipped right down and screamed \u201couch,\u201d
\nSince I broke half the bones in my left and right feet
\nAnd for weeks couldn\u2019t walk, though I could learn to beat
\nA huge backlog of games for my sweet new PlayStation,
\nBrought up to my room by a dark delegation:
\nTwo guilty-eyed parents, both clearly aware
\nThe outdoors wasn\u2019t \u201cgreat,\u201d no one needed \u201cfresh air,\u201d
\nAnd \u201cgo out and play\u201d was a scam by some nurses
\nWho\u2019d push us outside… and then right into hearses.
\nWe were safer at home, in the bedroom or basement,
\nEnthralled with a screen\u2014the best cheap risk abatement.
\nMy parents retreated, their offering made
\nAnd I stayed in bed, where I slept and I played.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

No timers, no limits, no digital locks
\nAnd no one complained if I wore the same socks
\nFor five days in a row while I wandered the West
\nWhere I gambled, shot, looted as one of the best
\nOf the worst men on earth, who would take all your cash
\nAnd then rustle your horses\u2014until a game crash
\nCorrupted each one of my character saves
\nAnd my undying bandit now rests in his grave.
\nI role-played my way through space outpost and ocean,
\nKissed girls, then a guy, then two alien Krogan
\nAnd after I saved Ancient Greece, modern Gotham,
\nThe Milky Way, Earth, and a meadow in blossom
\nI jumped into war games and called down some woe
\nUpon trench-coated Nazis, last hateable foe.
\nThen I found out, when my six weeks were through,
\nAnd the casts were sawed off and my feet felt like new,
\nThat the \u201creal world\u201d was scary and not as much fun
\nAs a good online game, tight controls, and a gun.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

The universe spoke to us each that December
\nIn ways that no one would much want to remember.
\nMy dad had become the first human to view
\nEach glorious show in his long Netflix queue.
\nA powerful sense of despair then descended
\nAs he pondered the paths in which his life had tended.
\nWithout the TV, he had no good distraction
\nFrom thinking and thinking about his inaction.
\nAnd mom gained a habit of checking her phone
\nAt inopportune times\u2014not just when alone.
\nOnce in the courtroom, she gave a small snort
\nAfter reading a joke text on spousal support.
\nThe judge made her stand and then read her a lecture,
\nSuggesting that maybe her friends shouldn\u2019t text her
\nWhile she was in court or there\u2019d be an attempt
\nTo blackball my mom and find her in contempt.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

I spent so much time slaying demons and liches
\nI gained thirteen pounds and came down with eye twitches
\nWhich didn\u2019t concern me until Christmas came\u2014
\nAnd I spent it upstairs with a video game.
\nSomething wasn\u2019t quite right\u2014life was losing its savor
\nThat hard-to-define-it-but-you\u2019ll-know-it flavor.
\nAll three of us sat on our beds or on chairs
\nFeeling much too depressed to go up or down stairs.
\nIn the New Year, my mom called a Zoom meeting
\nAnd we all said yes, that we should start treating
\nOur addictive and yet unacknowledged submission\u2014
\nAnd start seeing screens with a lot more suspicion.
\nSo this would be it: our year of detoxing.
\nWe took all our screens and spent Sunday night boxing
\nThem up and then down to the basement we went;
\nWe were going to be free\u2014one hundred per cent.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ll rethink it all,\u201d my dad said, \u201cLike Descartes!
\nAnd rebuild our lives from the floor to rampart.\u201d
\nThen came the fidgets, the phantom limb feeling
\nThat some part of you was cut off and not healing,
\nThat reflex of reaching for phone or controller
\nAnd finding your hand felt a little bit colder
\nWith nothing to cradle, no glorious gizmos
\nThat promise to stop you from thinking of escrows,
\nOf egos, of toads beneath harrows, of death
\nThat still stalks us with rattling breath\u2026
\nWell\u2014
\nWe tried what we could, we ate family dinners
\nAnd read books on how to think just like real winners,
\nBooks written by not-yet-disgraced CEOs
\nAnd relationship gurus who maintained their pose
\nThat life had a code, and they had it figured;
\nEverything came down to slogans and zingers.
\n\u201cSelf-love is not selfish,\u201d my mother would say,
\nWalking past with her yoga mat. \u201cSo\u2014Namaste!\u201d
\nMy dad ditched his flannels for logoed T-shirts
\nThat said things like \u201cGood Vibes\u201d and \u201cSelfishness Hurts.\u201d
\nBut I couldn\u2019t quit the allure of distraction\u2014
\nDid we have to kill all<\/i> of that sweet screen time action?
\nCould ten minutes matter\u2014heck, round up to an hour\u2014
\nWith that glowing blue screen of unusual power?
\nSo on Easter Sunday, screens still in the basement,
\nI crept out at night from my hidden emplacement
\nYearning to feel that now long-lost connection,
\nLooking to have a device resurrection.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

I tip-toed downstairs, where I flipped on the switch
\nAnd startled my dad, who said, \u201cSon of a bitch!\u201d
\nBecause there were my parents, on a ratty old loveseat
\nWith gadgets plugged in and a cheese plate to eat.
\nThey sat side-by-side, I saw with a shock,
\nshe texting away while he watched The Rock.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Self-help hadn\u2019t helped, so our loins then we girt
\nFor a nine-hour drive to New York\u2014and a yurt.
\nThe Shambala Center would unchain our brains
\nThrough mindfulness, yoga, and chanted refrains.
\n(And some really remarkably boring-ass food;
\nBrown rice will sustain you but won\u2019t lift your mood.)
\nIt was Buddhist by way of San Fran and Cape Cod;
\nBig dollops of Burning Man, self-help, and God.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

We woke up at six and imagined hot showers
\nWhile hiking instead through the cold for two hours.
\nWe warmed up by milking five cows and six goats,
\nThen shoveling muesli bars into our throats.
\nMeditation time followed, from nine until ten,
\nAt which point we down-dogged\u2014then got Zenned again.
\nWe lived in each moment, just present and grounded
\nContent without screens until mealtime bells sounded.
\nPost-lunch you could meet with a life coach of sorts
\nWho wore sandals and socks and some shocking short shorts
\nShe held herself out as a spiritual leader,
\nA wonderfully wise counselor and soul reader.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Mom, dad, and I got the same strong advice:
\n\u201cTreat your cell phones like vermin; treat them like lice!
\nShampoo them and tweeze them right out of your life,
\nAnd if that doesn\u2019t work\u2014go ahead, grab a knife!
\nCut them and stab them until they\u2019re all dead;
\nNo gadgets should come anywhere near your head.\u201d
\nThis felt extreme, but she was persuasive;
\n\u201cDoing without\u201d came to seem innovative.
\nBut she closed each session with one final koan:
\n\u201cBury your fears before ditching your phone.\u201d
\nFeeling better and kinder and somewhat more mellow,
\nWithout all those gadgets to thunder and bellow
\nTheir notifications, their beeps and their boops,
\nOur brains settled down and stopped spinning in loops.
\nBut three weeks in tents being mindful as balls
\nMade us realize how much we loved houses and walls.
\nBack home we headed, not \u201ccured\u201d and not \u201cbetter,\u201d
\nBut willing to hack at our digital fetter.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Dad gave up his plans to watch all the way through
\nThe Lord of the Rings<\/i> and the whole MCU,
\nAnd instead moved his TV right out of the den,
\nThen stopped, picked it up, put it back in again.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t need an office,\u201d he said, \u201cand the desk?
\nYou can forget it\u2014just so Kafkaesque.
\nMy new way of writing is outdoors and rambling.
\nTreat life like a slot machine and then get to gambling
\nThat words won by walking will mean something special\u2014
\nReal and alive, not just self-referential.\u201d
\nNo more skinny jeans, no more sweatshirts with hoods.
\nIn khakis and boots, Dad went tramping through woods.
\nHe got poison ivy his second week out,
\nBut wasn\u2019t distracted by even this bout
\nOf bad fortune, nor by the deep itching
\nFrom gnats that in week four invaded his stitching.
\nHe owned a hard truth that was clear to us all:
\nDad wasn\u2019t a Jesus nor even Saint Paul.
\nHe was (at the most) a quite minor apostle
\nMaking his way through the throng and the jostle
\nOf life with good grace and a few observations
\nJotted while fleeing those indoor temptations.
\nHe bowed to his failures as though to a teacher,
\nWhich unblocked the words, even when they were weaker
\nThan he might have wanted\u2014than he might have yearned for\u2014
\nAnd yet he was working and up off the floor.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

My mother faced down her imposter syndrome
\nAnd read up on healing her microbiome.
\nShe downed probiotics but felt like a jerk
\nWhen repeating her mantra: \u201cI\u2019m good<\/i> at my work!\u201d
\nBut as she grew comfortable with her own worth
\nShe gradually felt like her one shot on earth
\nWas wasted on suing the modestly vile\u2014
\nLike those who made cash selling rare black yak bile.
\nYes, bile was bad but not quite as soul killing
\nAs finding yourself socialized into willing
\nThat you could spend more<\/i> of your life\u2019s precious powers
\nContractually parsing for billable hours.
\nWho needed a Bentley or rides on a jet
\nWhen all that one wanted\u2014all one could get\u2014
\nIn an ultimate sense was some love and affection
\n(And a quite passable strappy sandal collection.)
\nBut when she had shared this enlightened perspective
\nWith her fellow partners, she got a corrective
\nTo her big idea that less work wasn\u2019t lazy.
\nThe partners just looked at her like she was crazy,
\nA \u201ctypical woman\u201d who valued her kid
\nMore than flying first class on Spring Break to Madrid.
\nSo Mom quit. She walked out. She began something new,
\nA firm where the goal was not just to accrue
\nBut to live<\/i>. Sure, money was less by a factor of two,
\nYet so was the time\u2014\u201cAnd you can\u2019t beat the view
\nFrom your own corner office,\u201d she said with a smile,
\n\u201cEven when it looks out on the city trash pile.\u201d
\nHaving worked on herself and then taken real action
\nMom now needed less of that online distraction.
\nShe used her phone daily but once through our door,
\nThe glowing rectangle went into a drawer.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

As for me, I could spin out a credible story
\nAbout how I came to stop playing those gory
\nAnd glorious shooters I loved to lose days in,
\nBut that would not be a true-hearted confession.
\nGames are amazing! You can\u2019t just say no
\nTo a drug that\u2019s so potent, it lets you go pro
\nAnd play e-sports tourneys for serious bank
\nBy attacking with Ryu or driving a tank.
\nSo I couldn\u2019t stop gaming\u2014perhaps I had failed,
\nBut my custom controller just couldn\u2019t be jailed.
\nYet I did venture out with my mom and my dad
\nOn short winter walks that were quiet and sad
\nAnd long summer rambles that filled me joy
\nIn green growing things and the ways they destroy
\nThat terminal sense of a distance from life,
\nOur love of distraction, \u201cthe news,\u201d and of strife
\nAnd offer instead a rest from algorithms,
\nNot free from our problems\u2014but slowed to life\u2019s rhythms.
\nAnd though I kept thinking of games in 3D,
\nI ignored all my fears and then free-climbed a tree.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

So that\u2019s the whole story, with jolts and collapses
\nAnd more than a few temporary relapses,
\nOf how screens invaded, like all colonizers,
\nDismissing our cultures, proclaiming theirs wiser.
\nAnd much of it was<\/i> unbelievably awesome
\nBut some was just petty, and parts were just dumb.
\nAmazing the way screens could melt down like wax
\nAnd fill in our minds\u2019 and our hearts\u2019 biggest cracks,
\nTo keep us engaged with the unending new
\nWhile ignoring the quiet, the boring, the true.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Nate Anderson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2007, when phones began changing, My mother engaged in some life rearranging. A client of hers used some “herbal” pomade, Then he itched and he burned and he swore and he swayed. His hair all fell out and it hurt when he sat, He was owed, he complained, compensation for that. My mother agreed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":624731,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3855,1597,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-624730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ridiculous","8":"category-screen","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}