A Face in the Distance

 
                                             A Face in the Distance
        
         Many, many, many years ago, I read "The Machine Stops", a short  story written by E.M.Forster in 1909.  It was about a man living in a future world that was controlled by the "Machine" and this Machine gave the  people everything they could ever want.  It also gave them means to communicate with one another without having to leave their safe and secure domicile.  This man wanted to speak to his mother who lived a great distance away.  To converse with another person at that time, one used the electronic devices provided for by the Machine.  But he was tired of  talking into gadgets and seeing his mother's face on a screen.  He wanted to meet her in person.

       But there was a problem: his mother saw no reason to leave her comfortable apartment to talk with her son when they could just as well  talk through the devices that the Machine has provided.  Yet, the man saw the continual absence of her physical presence would amount to a form of estrangement.  He felt their humanity slowly being eaten away.  And no one, no one except himself, seemed to care.

     There were other themes in the story but the one that stayed with me was the subtle suggestion that there is danger in relying solely on the use of machines to provide for all means of existence.  Forster also illustrated, in his short story, that there is danger to humanity from not having personal contacts with one another.  The story ended with the tragic consequences of having trusted the machines.

       A remarkable thing was that he wrote this short story 106 years ago,  where he writes about devices similar to ours that connects people to each other without having to be in the same room, which would necessitate  being within talking distant and breathing in one another's scent (we do have a scent and we do unconsciously react on it like other wild animals). I would recommend everybody to read it.

       I do not agree that having a conversation without your warm body being present is dangerous.  I see young people in groups, strolling along the mall, being euphorically oblivious to each other while tapping or talking into a small, hand held instruments.  It's amazing how much they have to say to people far, far away while ignoring the one already there, but I see happiness in their faces.  I also see that there is absolutely no danger to the person other than stepping accidently into pot holes because one isn't looking.

     Speaking as a very, very shy person (which I am), these new ways of  communicating without confronting each other's awkwardness, or having to have eye contact, or having to check one's appearance (seeing that there are no coffee stains on the clothing, spinach on the teeth), or checking one's breath with a cupped palm, is just too much of a blessing. 

      A good example is funerals.  I'm not good at funerals.  I say inappropriate things.  Like when I address the bereaved person in the greeting line and, by my nature, crack a joke...to lighten things up, and am met with scowling faces, great, great disapproval, and disproportionate blows to the head.  Now with our modern E-mail, facebook, I-phones and other telecommunication devices, I can just text my condolences and, most important of all, being able to edit the damn thing so I don't have another embarrassing faux pas,.  That's all I have to say.  Thank you.