How far into the Anthropocene are we? Sometimes it feels like we are right at the peak, but then I see something I cannot explain and feel right at the beginning.
I can't critique mass phone usage in public because they contain something, or someone, that knew us better than anything in public ever could. Public spaces, no matter how familiar or crowded, could still make us feel alone. Not with our mobile phones in our pockets. We could make anywhere our new public, our own space, our new daydream. Our new selves.
My phone contained my sister, photos, journals, darkest secrets, my past and future selves in all the pages, places, and people I could visit and draw inspiration from. To enter the online world was a deep dive, you couldn't simply wade with one foot in and one foot out in the real world. You had to be all or nothing. Get on the right side of history, or be unnaturally selected out.
I suppose I was all in. I had survival instincts after all. But if I was going to swim with the flow of a species I had no pride in being, I had to go my own speed. I had my whole life ahead of me after all, and had no enemies following.
