We were recently having fun with Ram, poking fun at humanity’s obsession with saving time on tasks only to immediately fill that saved time with other tasks.
We philosophized a bit, had a laugh at humanity’s expense (I confess we did, sorry dear humanity, but sometimes some of your representatives just don’t cooperate), and arrived at some very Ram-like conclusions.
But the topic kept nagging at me, because according to my math, automating my tasks should have saved me enough time for 3 or 4 real coffees a week with good friends — which, if the computer’s calculator isn’t lying to me, comes out to no fewer than 156 coffees a year.
And digging through my memory, I find that we had… none.
But that’s not serious, right? Because we’ve diligently handed out the appropriate likes on posts, we’ve known how to leave the right comments, and we haven’t let a single birthday go by without leaving the corresponding greeting on their wall — or on both walls, if they have two social networks… or three, if they’re also in a WhatsApp group or… well, you get the point.
And I’ve had the thrill of hearing one of their voices tell me about their life for eight minutes through a WhatsApp voice message, which I listened to at 2x speed because I was in a rush to get to a place I don’t even remember… because it turned out it wasn’t important. At least not more important than my friend.
How sad it is to admit that I outsourced the hug, automated the affection, and gave in to the ultra-optimized system that spares us the inconvenience of looking each other in the eye, or of sitting through that comfortable silence that follows a good laugh.
Maybe this realization will sting enough that next time the calendar reminds me it’s time to “maintain” a friendship, instead of leaving a message on their wall, I’ll close the app, call my friend, and say: “Cut the nonsense — the calculator says you owe me a coffee.”
