No remorse per se, but lying in bed after ordering, I thought, I can't believe I'm so worked up over a phone. I fell into a troubled reverie. Is this thing actually worth getting so excited over? I mean, it's a great phone, but ultimately, what is it going to do but just basically what my current phone does, only faster and better?
Then I projected my thoughts into the future, a few days after activating my new phone. The euphoric rush of having a shiny new toy inexorably fading into the dull background hum of everyday life. I imagined myself boxing up my old phone to send in for Amazon credit. How amped I was the day I bought that phone! Just a year later, it's so much detritus to be swept up and recycled for credit I'll use to buy more glittering baubles that will end up as next year's trash.
A wave of melancholy hit me as I lay there, staring up at the dark void of the bedroom ceiling. Life is short, and pleasure fleeting. Is this what it's all about, then? Leaping from one novelty to another, riding a succession of waves of anticipation and gratification in a desperate bid to stave off the darkness until at last I reach the eternal rest of the grave? Is this all there is? Nothing more? Why wait, then? Why not just relax my grip on this mundane material plane and give myself up to whatever waits beyond.
Then I imagined myself dying in my sleep -- a week later, my grieving wife receiving two phones from FedEx, tears running down her face as she holds the now superfluous phone, tied to a contract claiming two years of a human life that no longer exists.
No! Better to hold on, no matter how empty and Sisyphean this existence may be. If not for my own sake, then for that of my loved ones. If there's a meaning to my life, it's not bound to this metal and glass rectangle I've just spent an hour procuring. It's about the people I love. If I can use this gadget in any way to help make their lives brighter or easier, then that's reason enough to look forward to 9/21. At last, I closed my eyes and felt the tension ease from my neck and shoulders as I relaxed into my pillow.
Then I had to get up and go pee.
Then I projected my thoughts into the future, a few days after activating my new phone. The euphoric rush of having a shiny new toy inexorably fading into the dull background hum of everyday life. I imagined myself boxing up my old phone to send in for Amazon credit. How amped I was the day I bought that phone! Just a year later, it's so much detritus to be swept up and recycled for credit I'll use to buy more glittering baubles that will end up as next year's trash.
A wave of melancholy hit me as I lay there, staring up at the dark void of the bedroom ceiling. Life is short, and pleasure fleeting. Is this what it's all about, then? Leaping from one novelty to another, riding a succession of waves of anticipation and gratification in a desperate bid to stave off the darkness until at last I reach the eternal rest of the grave? Is this all there is? Nothing more? Why wait, then? Why not just relax my grip on this mundane material plane and give myself up to whatever waits beyond.
Then I imagined myself dying in my sleep -- a week later, my grieving wife receiving two phones from FedEx, tears running down her face as she holds the now superfluous phone, tied to a contract claiming two years of a human life that no longer exists.
No! Better to hold on, no matter how empty and Sisyphean this existence may be. If not for my own sake, then for that of my loved ones. If there's a meaning to my life, it's not bound to this metal and glass rectangle I've just spent an hour procuring. It's about the people I love. If I can use this gadget in any way to help make their lives brighter or easier, then that's reason enough to look forward to 9/21. At last, I closed my eyes and felt the tension ease from my neck and shoulders as I relaxed into my pillow.
Then I had to get up and go pee.
