Our Sense of Duty To Others

Do our screens and gadgets keep us from noticing what's going on around us? Does our technology keep us from face-to-face situations and the unspoken obligations that go with them? I've asked myself more than once these questions, especially when I see people crossing streets with a phone in their ear and paying no attention to the traffic.

The question of our unspoken obligations to one another has been debated many times before. All I can add is that our smarts phones with their cameras and video recorders have proved very useful in assisting police in times of trouble. Not to mention they can be used to call the police or ambulance.

Though what do you say to people who insist they can drive their car and talk on the phone at the same time? Even with a "hands free" device this is a difficult task. How did we ever survive for so long without being able to drive and talk on the phone? Have we created a society which is so pressed for time that we have to openly disregard the law about driving and using our cell phones? It's obviously worse in our cities and on our highways to engage in this practice, but who's to say you couldn't drive off a back country road and end up in a ditch.

I wish I had a simple solution and could apply it to everyone at every time. It might upset most busy folks to realize they are not as busy as they feel, and could possibly wait until they reach their destination to make a call, or simply pull over and turn off the engine.

I suppose I'm feeling my age because I can still easily recall a time when we weren't presented with such dilemmas. It was a time where pay phones or borrowing the use of a friend's land line phone were all we had if we needed to make a call. Maybe we were less transitory back then but I suspect we are likely more anxious now. Hard to believe we could be more anxious than in a time where two Superpowers had hundreds of nukes pointed at each other and the tension was palpable; a single hotline was all that separated us from a catastrophe.

The case can be made that we do live in a more dangerous and uncivil age. If so, then my hope is that we all remember a time when it wasn't so extreme and lend a hand when asked or when you see someone who needs one. Believe you have a sense of duty to those around you and trust this feeling will make a difference in how everybody feels.