Life can be much more relaxed without pings
ONE OF the delights of spending time on a remote Karoo farm is that internet reception is very poor and unreliable. (Yes, that was not a typing error. I wrote “delights” and not “disadvantages”.) A few days out of cellphone range reminds us just how ridiculously dependent we have become on that little tyrant we keep in our pocket.
I often see a group of people chatting, then there’s a little “ping” and the talk stops and everybody reaches for their phones. (“Did you ping or was that me?”)
We have succumbed to the disease called FOMO (fear of missing out). We feel guilty when somebody says accusingly: “I tried to call you yesterday but you didn’t answer your phone.”
You feel obliged to explain, and probably apologise. “Sorry, I ran out of air time,” or “Hey, sorry. I forgot it in my car when I went to the dentist.”
But when your phone doesn’t work anyway, among those shielding Karoo ironstone hills, there’s no point in carrying it about with you, so you leave it in your suitcase. And after a while you realise you’re not missing it. Life can be more relaxed without pings. Is it really important that your friend in Durban can call you at any time to WhatsApp a photo of her cat to you? How often have we interrupted an interesting chat about a fascinating place we visited or our plans for installing a rainwater tank, only to be interrupted suddenly by a ping – “I’d better see who that is” – and we end a meaningful conversation in order to be told that we stand to win a car if we recharge our phones with R26 of airtime.
Very few people are important enough to need to be available at all times – plumbers, possibly, or maybe doctors and members of sea rescue crews, but not writers or lawyers or car salesmen. Not even important politicians.
In the wide-open spaces of the Karoo you can concentrate on the sounds of the real world – the bark of a distant sheep dog, the creak of a windmill, the whirring rattle of a clapper lark’s wings, the crow of a bantam rooster and even the quiet talk of a companion walking beside you – without having one ear constantly alert for a ping.
I would like to tell you about the serious damage being inflicted on stock farmers by the recent invasion of wild pigs in the Karoo. We never knew about wild pigs when I was growing up there. Things have changed.
But, wait. I think I heard a ping. Maybe we can talk about wild pigs sometime later.
Last Laugh
Two goats were grazing among the trash on the municipal rubbish dump when one of them discovered an old video cassette and started chewing it.
His companion came over and asked, “what’s that you’re eating?” “Not sure,” said the goat, “but it had
printed on it.” “What was it like?” “Not bad, but actually I preferred the book.”