Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Peace Essays

Enslaved by our Tools

The cave man found fire, created the wheel and mythology, carved stone and invented other tools to help our species survive. Our tools are just” our tools,” no more, no less.. They make life livable. Today, sometimes, our tools are our masters. That is not livable; that is slavery. For us to find peace in the 21^st century, we must become masters of our tools and use them to make life again more livable so that our spirit ( as well as our bodies) survive.

Whether the car, computer or TV, we remain at its mercy

  It all started innocently enough. My wife Anne and I were leaving Lakewood Tennis and Racquet Club after our daily workout and she said, "Do you have the keys?"

  I was in one of those moods where a simple answer just wasn't in my nature. I said, "No, the keys have me."

  That did it. Much of that day, the next and into that week all I could think about was all the things in daily life that "had" us in their grasp.

  At one time I did not have a computer to type my articles. I had a typewriter who had me. Before that I wrote out my thoughts longhand and then passed them over to my secretary who had me until she was finished.

  Now, it is e-mail. I check it in the morning, the afternoon, the evening after dinner, and if I get up in the middle of the night, I check in to my master again. It has me good.

  Writing letters seems like something of the past. Even then I had to have a certain pencil or pen. Of course, I do write at times and then fax the pages to some unseen source. The fax has me, too.

  It is not enough that my computer, fax and e-mail have me. Now, I need a scanner. Of course, without all this, I have (or it has me) my office away from my home office: Kinkos. They know me by name. They have me because they own my time and knowledge when I pass over some gem that just must be done "now." Time has me, too.

  My car is in the repair shop today. They have me. The house owns me more than I own the house. Just ask the bank which holds the mortgage, having sway over a cut of the Social Security check that I now get from the government since I retired to be free from others having my time.

  The income tax deadline just passed. Anyone who does not believe that the government does not "have" us is cheating on his or her tax returns.

  My dog and cat own me. I take them out or leave them out when they want to go.

    Little things have me too in this modern world: a lock when it will not open. The garage door when I press the automatic button to summon its services.

 

     Electricians and plumbers have me. The morning newspaper controls my first hour of being awake.

    The telephone! Now don't start me about the telephone. Even when I am not at home the an­swering machine has a message that I just can't miss. Those unwanted calls in the evening have me, those that start with, "Joe, it is wonderful catching you at home. We have a deal that you just can't refuse."

  Well, Brother (actually "bother"), you don't have me. I can hang up the phone now as fast as any Western gunslinger.

  But then, the television (when on) has me. When my mind is tired, I watch anything, falling asleep in the "have-me" easy chair to the soft sounds of murder, love, Chinese news broadcasts (in Chinese), sports of any kind, commercials, talk shows, "sit corns" and cartoons. And then there is the addiction to the Internet.

  My bed has me a third of my life. The bathroom has its time too. So does the stationary bike. It has me for 30-45 minutes each day. The craze for health has me.

  At least my wife and I do not have each other.  We share each other.

 "Who has me now?" I ask some days. Who owns me for this precious second or minute? The car? The computer? A promise that I made?

     "To have or have not" is the question. Some time during the day, a simple question like      "Do you have the keys to the car?" is more complex when you begin to think about who has what and when.

  Do I have a name or does my name own me? It is a puzzlement. In fact, I do not have a name. I am a number.

  I have learned the secret, though. It is to "unhave.”  For years, I collected works of art until I began to realize some of them owned me. To “unhave” is the secret of living today. Therefore the next time you go to that “have you” high school reunion, take the wrong name tag. Unhave yourself!

The one piece of technology that has the world is the cell phone. It is not a tool. It is part of the arm, ear and mind of its “so-called owner.” It is the Frankenstein of my age and I, sadly to say, am Mary Shelley, losing a battle to this new monster of science.

Cell disease spreading

Portable phone mania inflicting needless suffering on rest of world

     It was on a bus into Pittsburgh.  The lady across from me and her friend sitting beside me were passing their cell phone back and forth, talking to some unseen, unknown (to me) presence.

      I was learning all that I ever wanted to know about the trials and tribulations, aches and pains of prostate surgery, with appropriate and inappropriate com­ments by the lady's friend.

     I remember the game of hot potato when I was growing up here on Pittsburgh's Northside. A ball was passed around until someone was caught. Time ran out. Here, time never seemed to run out. There was no embarrassment of the whole world knowing “your business.”

  And that is what this conversation was all about, exposing your business and having no conscience about allowing the world into your non-private "what-should-be-private" world. These two women thought that they were "survivors." They were Andy Warhol queens for the moment. It was as if it was understood that I wanted to share their private, unimportant (to me) lives.

  I don't remember ever being asked, but the invasion into our privacy is on. It's been in full motion for some time.

More than I needed to know

  Walking down the street, it seems that one in every five persons has cell-phone elbow. For a while, I put my arm and hand to my ear with nothing in it, and people nodded to me as if I had joined a non-secret club.

     In Finland, 90 percent of families now have cell phones. I read that somewhere or maybe heard it on a subway during a cell-phone conversation.

     It is a new world. A world that I do not understand. And until I change my upbringing of "son, their life is none of your business"^, to "expose yourself; it's cool," I do not want to understand.

     In an elevator in New York, I learned all about a young man's love life, breaking up with a faceless someone. A few years ago during the performance of "Miss Saigon," an older man shared his cellular conversation through most of the first act of the musical. It was the ultimate in rudeness, I thought at the time.

  Since then such behavior has become so commonplace that theaters are, now saying “No cell phones allowed." Yet they are brought into the productions. Certainly, they are all around at the intermissions. The next step, I suppose, is cell-phone areas. Maybe they can combine smoking and cel­lular pollution.

Put a sock in it, please

  I will never understand talking on a cell phone and standing at a urinal. Maybe it is the fascination of doing two things at one time. I used to love to show off that I could rub my tummy and pat my head when I was quite young. And then there is driving, eating a sandwich, combing your hair and practicing cell-phone elbow.

  I hate to add another, traffic lane, but we already need cell lanes. I think everyone will agree that there must be new rules about using the cell phone while driving, but all I see is extensions of its use.

  As for cell phones in public, it is getting so that every detail of any stranger's or friend's life is a public infringement.

  We hear, "If you don't want to know, just shut it out." Have you ever tried to shut out a fist when it is pounding your face?

  Maybe one could get relief by going to a foreign land where one couldn't understand the conversation over one's shoulder. The next, innovation will be universal translators in cell phones that automat­ically convert any language into understandable babble for anyone within ear-shot distance. Then it will be absolutely impossible to get away from cell phones. In fact, I hear that some scientists and merchants are working on implanted cell phones so that when you seem to be talking to yourself you are really talking to Mom.