Lost Cards of 1978
Colorful, waxy paper unravels reluctantly like a “Three and O” pitch. A musty scent of cardboard is overtaken by the sweet, distant, distinct smell of bubble gum. CRACK! The simultaneous sound of a bat snapping… and my gum shredding into chards as I bite down. The contents of this package radiate the notion of an untold mystery. The stiff, perfect feel of the cards and the texture of one single, brittle stick of gum… all covered in white powdery sugar… cards and all. The rampant imagery of professional baseball players making amazing plays – diving catches – big booming homeruns. I study each card ever so carefully, as the pictures come alive and the enigmatic highlights are revealed and discovered. I chew slowly, the flavor dissipates quickly. I keep chewing my flavorless cud, as the highlights keep rolling. One hard earned dollar bought me five packs of baseball cards. It might be a full week before I could earn another five packs to continue this amazing adventure. I could make opening those five packs last an hour. It was a pleasure, a treasure that I longed for. I would slowly reveal each card. Each batter sauntered up to the plate and each fielder trotted out onto the field to their respective position. As each anticipated card turned, I quietly hoped and prayed that it would be a Red Sox player. I savored the moment with my soul. This was my quiet time, my happy place, my fantasy… I wanted to see myself on that level, on one of those cards, so badly. But for right now, I understood, this was as good as it gets and that was fine by me.
After the sacred unveiling of the cardboard tablets, I properly organized the cards into their special home, a hand-crafted wooden box with compartments that I had made. I picked the thin-wooded case up by its rope handle, and in a routine fashion, slid the case into its undisclosed hiding place in the depths of my closet. I would then sprint to the outdoors where my homemade version of Fenway Park anxiously awaited for me to take the field. I imagined my name being called out over the loud speakers. I would throw myself pop flies and chase them down, diving and catching them for spectacular game ending plays. I would toss wiffle balls or rocks and whack game winning homeruns into the woods. I would deliver the commentary with colorful play by play, as I made these highlight reels come to life. I had a connection with these cards and made them part of me. I wouldn’t even consider opening a pack of cards unless I was absolutely sure that I had the appropriate time necessary to appreciate and cherish them in this manner.
I was ten years old and the days were long and slow – just like the game of baseball. I enjoyed my imagination, it was my best friend. I feared losing it, as I was also quite astute, and did not know very many imaginative adults. I knew a premature transformation would eventually take place, stripping me of my youth – like a runaway fastball, coming right at me. I just didn’t know how or when it would actually happen.
It is nearing forty years later… and I fondly remember those days. Perhaps at one point every day since then, in my adult life, I have had at least one random, calming memory about those days. In between the rushing and the stressing and the general overwhelm, lives a little boy with a very big imagination and similar bigger-than-life dreams… Back then, the whole world was wide open with lots of future ahead and just waiting to be discovered and unraveled like one of those packs of baseball cards.
I feel frustration when I observe today’s youth. They do not know how to imagine and play like that… to make a game out of nothingness… everythingness… We are all born with this ability and imagination, yet something quickly changes us like a time-bomb without a countdown clock attached. Yes, we grow into (hopefully) responsible adults contributing to society and that price takes its toll on our creativity and imagination. However, we are overtaken and absorbed by a huge sponge of bills, insufficient salaries, stresses, and exhaustion. I believe the root of all of this is technology and the constant driving force to make things easier and faster. Microwaves began to cook our food faster, remotes allowed us to not have to get up out of our squishy chairs, internet and social networking enabled us to “live” a life outside of leaving the house. We want everything now and even faster than that if possible. We have shaped and molded ourselves into little impatient maniacs that cannot get enough instant stimuli. Our heads are flopped over, as if our necks are broken, hunched over, holding these glowing magical devices in our hands that will transport our minds to anywhere we choose without any thought at all. Unaware, we instantly and gladly close ourselves off to the real world – we swipe and poke at the screen as involuntary as breathing. We prefer conversations through these screens, even when we’re in the same vicinity as one another.
Today’s kids would take those baseball cards and rip those packs open one after another in rapid succession as they hastily rifle through them and toss them on the floor where mom or dad would have to eventually gather them up, and the kids would already be off to play on the latest, most-in-demand videogame system to pick up the game controller and control the realistically live players on the screen instead of using and exercising their own imagination. They would never think about those cards again, scattered carelessly on the floor – those dreary, boring cards could never compete with the flashing lights and booming sounds coming from the video game home theater. All of the thinking and creativity is done for them. We have gotten this lazy and pathetic.
We have crossed the digital line – making the real world and the digital world ONE entity. There is no more slowness… no more self-imagination or self-interaction. Everything is already neatly packaged and you do not have to do any of the thinking. We are dumbing down. Everything is automated in a sense. You used to have to memorize phone numbers! We barely use our brains. Look at today’s Lego’s, they already come in special shapes and designs to look exactly like the actual thing. My generation’s Lego’s were square and rectangular and you had to creatively build with them. It was you and the toy sharing “connection time,” enveloped in the same world – creating something awesome together. We do not connect anymore… it appears that we prefer to interact directly through stimulating screens that respond immediately. There’s no time, interest, ability or knowledge for self-reflection and self-growth. We prefer dropping each other a thousand quick text messages vs. one good face to face conversation. Kids today cannot even wait their turn to talk, they interrupt and don’t understand why that is impolite because they are used to texting, tweeting, emailing, uploading all at the same time and do not have to wait a turn to bust in on an instant message chain. Interrupting is actually somewhat encouraged in these environments.
We have created a fast-paced society where it is more admired for how busy your schedule is versus slowing down and spending a little time with your family and friends like back in the 1970’s when there were still some blue laws in place and Sunday was considered sacred family time. Now look at how many actual nuclear families are left… it’s sad, they are dissipating as fast as the flavor of that bubblegum from those baseball cards. We compete to see who’s busier and has it tougher. We are so obsessed with ourselves and our electronic devices and posting every single thing that we do on social media networks, so we can become instantly digitally validated! We have crossed worlds in an irreversible way. We click “like” on each other’s pictures and posts… why? We need to feel like we have 500+ friends. We are way too self-absorbed. We need continual, endless approval of our actions and lives. The constant flow of information and stimuli deadens us in all other areas of our “Real Life.” How can boring, regular, real life compare to all those flashing messages we are being bombarded with? If we slow down or stop, we don’t know what to do with that time… our first instinct is to reach for a device and check in. We all now have DIGITAL ADD. The poor people, including myself, who really and actually have ADD are now lost among the digital herd of users – those who are behaviorally induced with D-ADD and need to stay connected at all times to a digital frontier that isn’t even real. I suppose in a digital, made-up world you can shape, mold and recreate yourself and your life to be exactly what you want – even if it isn’t reality.
The catch is… Everyone is doing it. Therefore, nobody is capable of noticing how catastrophic this really is… Nobody thinks that they have a problem. Nor does anyone care. I’m saddened by this digital digression we’ve adopted. I wish people could come together and digitally disconnect. This will never happen… This is just a bigger than life dream like the little boy who wanted to be a professional baseball player. It is too late, people cannot step back far enough to recognize the irreversible damage until it is too late and the damage is visually catastrophic. This is an invisible arena however, it cannot be seen. It has just become a way of life. High pressure, fast-paced communication, filling our schedules to the brim and filling it some more – inundated with way more information than we can even handle or process. It backlogs and waits for us, and we fall behind wondering when we’ll get some extra time to catch up to our digital world – which has become our new real world.
I wish I could convince you to begin unplugging for an hour. Then two, then three… then for a day… maybe even a week… would you then slow down or feel more relaxed? You would most likely feel more over-anxious than you’ve ever felt in your life. A complete feeling of disconnect. This is so backwards! It should be the other way around. But just imagine having nothing to check in on… just living and getting outside. No phone cameras for posting what you just did… this new digital-less time you have gained would be too sacred and special to share with the entire world. It is your alone time to discover who you are and what you want to be… a discovery in the making. I see people on “nature walks” talking on their phones and checking in on their many social accounts… shouldn’t this be solitude time? Time with nature… Time to get away from it all… We don’t even want that time anymore.
Who am I kidding… it was a good vent I suppose… but those lost cards of 1978 were carelessly handed over one late evening in college in exchange for beer money. I guess that is when I finally let go of the dream in my fantasy world and joined the adult world. I guess the good news is, I can always go online and set up some social networking accounts and begin to reshape and recreate myself into the perfect digital me… I’ll keep you posted – look for me on all of the obvious networking and communication posting sites where I will be looking for as much self-validation as possible.