My phone frequently blurts out the following digital notification:
“Medium power saving mode turned on
Your battery life has been extended.” The editor in me forgives the
missing hyphen between “power” and “saving.” It even shrugs off the missing
period after “turned on.” And why not be magnanimous? After all, the
smartphone’s notification exudes generosity, hope, and optimism.
Sure, I can pretend to take some credit for the cellphone notification,
owing to the settings I clicked on.
The word “notification” is a delicious one for an artisanal,
homegrown, non-GMO, gluten-free wordsmith such as myself. If St. Peter is hip
and modern enough, he can forgo all that fabled judgmental jazz at the gates of
Heaven. He can simply email notifications. I don’t doubt he can find a way to
spiritually transmit notifications to every soul. St. Peter, if you are
metaphysically listening, may I make a suggestion? Develop an app that has
emojis for paradisiacal salvation and for hellish damnation. Then you can save
yourself all the time and trouble words take. (Purgatory? I’m not so sure about
that one.) You won’t have to have all those interviews at the gate as depicted
in cartoons.
As for “power-saving mode,” don’t you wish we could do the
same for ourselves? Don’t you wish that a few taps of your fingers would put
you in a state of energy conservation? How handy it would be. Oh. Wait. We have
that! My word for that power-saving mode is the English word “nap.” In Spanish,
it’s “siesta.”
Why stop there? If we can invoke a personal power-saving
mode, we should also be able to apply the same concept to endless varieties of
human behavior. I salivate at the prospect of a limitless parade of modes
beyond power-saving. A few brief examples include anger-saving, grief-saving, embarrassment-saving,
trust-saving, and error-saving.
Logic dictates that this brave new world should stretch
beyond the limits of conservation, as it were. Flip the opposite way.
Power-enhancing, patience-enhancing, trust-enhancing, esteem-enhancing, virtue
enhancing. The list goes on ad infinitum.
I freely admit the existence of logistical hurdles. If it’s
not as easy as adjusting settings on your “digital device,” what are we left
with? “Conscience” is the smart-aleck reply of the wise ones among us. My
answer to that is: since our banishment from the Garden of Eden there has been
a deep and wide chasm between what conscience ordains and what human beings
actually do. So that’s the tricky part. Getting our behavior to be as automatic
as an app on our phone or tablet is hugely problematic. That’s why we have drug
and alcohol rehab centers; billions of dollars spent on psychoactive
medications; and gazillions of dollars — and hours — invested in weight control
and fitness. Not to be a shade too cynical, it’s also the reason we have
corrections facilities that strain the credulity of the word “correction.”
As I said at the outset, my phone also declares without
equivocation: “Your battery life has been extended.” Would that we could be as
certain. Would that our fortunes were bound by such a simple and absolute
algorithm.
“Your life has been extended” if you eat right, exercise
frequently, wear a seatbelt, and signal before turning. (Extended for how long?
one wonders.)
Text St. Peter. Ask him.
Get back to us on that.
1 comment:
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