9/11

Such strange times. It’s 9/11 today. The country is at war, yet here in the Silicon Valley, you couldn’t notice it. Except that there are more defense related contracts, and that’s good for business, I guess. In fact, people are still very much into materialism. A new line of iPods was released on Wednesday. At the coffee shop next to the office this morning, I noticed so many iPhones. There was a geek, no doubt thinking he was so cool, who couldn’t help but touch the iPhone on his hip every now and then. While he was ordering his decadent triple-latte-no-foam-with-room-on-top, he caressed the precious jewel 3 times in 1 minute, I counted. Should this poor soul seek help for some form of an obsessive disorder? He is not alone, unfortunately, although usually, the severity of the disorder is less acute. At the office, almost everyone has now ditched their previous cell and bought an iPhone. What for? Me, I’m thinking about a $60/year pay as you go plan, no thrills included, no Internet, no text, nothing. I don’t use my cell, except for emergencies. I don’t care about the latest gadgets. The iPhone is definitely very cool, but I don’t need it. Or if I had one, I would spend too much time playing with it at first, then that would pass, and then I would start wondering why I spent so much money on the device. And I would have a hard time reconciling my behavior with what is going on in the rest of the world. Our world is so fractured. There is a lot of misery, yet here we bathe in materialism and nobody seems to care what is going on elsewhere. It feels so strange to me.