Journal of Sacred Work

Editor’s Note: In a complete departure from our usual meditations, we share, today, a column by the talented Seattle writer, Julie Quiring. I have never met Julie, but I find her writing so entertaining I wanted to share a column of hers with you as today’s meditation. Julie
works for the renown poet David Whyte, whose work is frequently quoted in the Journal. Her columns also appear regularly in the National Literary Review, which I also edit – Erie Chapman
 

The New Black – By Julie Quiring

   Yesterday I decided to make my new cell phone ring with John Coltrane’s “My
Favorite Things.” It was hard to choose between that and the theme song from
The Pink Panther, and I nearly lost my head and joined Jamster, where for $5.99
a month I could choose two new ring tones, three graphics and a game every month. That way, during the
holidays I could have my phone play “Angels We Have Heard On High” by the
Philadelphia Brass Ensemble, followed by Brian Wilson crooning “Auld Lang
Syne.” When the New Year was under way and I got bored with Mr. Coltrane and
Mr. Mancini, the first bar of each of the Brandenburg Concertos would be
patiently waiting, along with the catchy opening to The Addams Family and Bobby
McFerrin doing “Ave Maria.” Feeling faint and slightly ashamed, I closed my
computer. I was no longer a cell phone virgin…

   Personalizing is the new black. My cell phone ring is not simply a sound
audible enough to attract my attention to the fact that someone would like to
talk with me; it expresses my whimsical personality to anyone unfortunate
enough to be in earshot. My computer desktop background cannot remain a restful
shade of blue – a hue that earned an excellent reputation in computer monitor
design by discreetly providing a backdrop for fonts and icons without inducing
eyestrain. On the contrary, it has become a beckoning palette, a blank canvas
awaiting Monet’s lilies or Escher’s manic genius, an opportunity to reflect my
eccentricity, my mood and my good taste in rotating installments. One might
think I was terribly afraid of being thought dull. Either that or terribly
afraid of actually getting any work done.
   I
can trace my technological deflowering to the day I changed my desktop picture
from Mt. Kilimanjaro to Degas’ dancers to my adorable
new nephew before noon. Desktop
pictures turned out to be a gateway drug, progressing to the more hard-core
world of widgets, one of which makes a picture frame appear – light wood, dark
wood, black or metallic – rotating photographs of our summer holiday every
fifteen minutes anywhere on my screen. Of course, I am not locked into fifteen
minutes – heaven forbid! With a click, I can re-set it to 60 minutes or
twenty-four hours, or fast-forward through several attractive shots of myself
chewing with impressive concentration.
   But that was just child’s play. With Apple’s new “Dashboard” I can keep an eye
on the five-day forecast, find out that e-bay stock has fallen by 1.34, and
learn that as I imbibe my morning café Americano a nation of people descended
from convicts are deep in late night revelry with their mates. Without
bothering with Google, I can translate a haiku from Japanese to English and
figure out my life savings in South African rand, which makes it look like a
lot more money. As if all this weren’t edifying enough, I can increase my
vocabulary with the Word Of The Day, although so far the bar seems to be set
fairly low, with words like panache, billet-doux and alpenglow.
   Forget Jedi Knights and mastering The Force: control of our personal space is
our destiny. Ironically, as we all run hither and yon broadcasting our unique,
individualized taste-of-the-moment like self-expression nymphomaniacs, the
overall impression, were we viewing ourselves from, say, an alien spacecraft –
is that of a confederacy of lemmings. Sure, lots of people bought an iPod for
the ability to listen to their favorite music in an outhouse in Tibet, but just
as many bought it as a trendy gadget or fashion statement, and when it comes to
an example of the power of the herd instinct, nothing holds a candle to the
world of fashion. If you don’t believe me, imagine a Greek God (just kidding –
of course he would be French) sitting up in the clouds, saying with a sadistic
twinkle in his eye, “let’s see if they’ll wear gauchos again.”  (Or,
according to my desktop translator: voyons s’ils porteront des gauchos encore.)
   As irrefutable evidence that personalizing is the latest fashion trend, the
other day I turned on the radio just as a Disc Jockey intoned, “and now it’s
time for ‘What’s in Dale Chihuly’s iPod?’” They were trying to appear highbrow
by featuring a glass artist, but it was nothing more than capitalizing on our
obsession with what Jennifer Anniston, Orlando Bloom or Ashlee Simpson think,
wear or do. The contents of Miles Davis’ iPod would conceivably have been of
interest, like the art Van Gogh might have picked out for his living room –
that is, if he had been able to afford a living room instead of being so poor
he had to beg his brother to send yellow paint. But Dale Chihuly’s? I think
not.
   Carrying on with the celebrity mindset, iTunes provides a way for me to rate
songs with a star system. It isn’t enough that I chose to copy or download them
onto my device; I can play at being judge of my own private GRAMMY awards. We
all have limits as to how much time we are willing to waste on completely
meaningless activities, and I was relieved to find that I drew the line at
assigning four stars to Bonnie Raitt’s “Angel from Montgomery" and then agonizing over whether “Bird
on a Wire” deserved better or worse.
   I love this stuff, but I try to keep in mind that it is no substitute for real
creative expression. In excess, personalizing becomes just another distraction;
another way of avoiding engaging in activities that yield growth, education and
genuine satisfaction, like playing an instrument, making a birthday card or
learning Hindi so we can understand the man giving us the activation code for
our new software. And although I am still unhappy that my phone did not come
equipped with “Jingle Bells;” I have reluctantly concluded that no matter how
clever, amusing or seasonally appropriate, ringing cell phones are mostly just
annoying.