Rather Suspect

I remember in college how satisfying it was to find “secret” places to study — relaxing places, hidden-away places, places where I could spend a couple of hours, uninterrupted, to get on top of things. I loved the flexibility of it, of being able to pick a spot, any spot, on campus and spend time there.

In many ways the pandemic — at first — reminded me of that feeling. There was no ability to go into the office, so…pick a place. I hid away at a little spot in Sonoma County for a time, and, though it could be lonely, there was a certain beautiful gift in that experience.

But — over time I realized, the trade-off is much worse than I thought. This “new way” of interacting has its price, and that price is steep. With infinite flexibility comes a sense of disconnection. A Zoom chat is a terrible substitute for a human interaction. Why does it feel as bad as it does?

Somehow phone calls are better — I think in part because a phone call doesn’t pretend so hard. Looking at someone on a video screen — what’s gained? When talking heads broadcast themselves on television, it’s a trick, propaganda: they are using visual images to engineer a false sense of closeness. We are made to feel like we “know” that news anchor but of course we don’t at all: it’s all theater.

So Zoom approximates that, the falseness, the fascimile. Seeing someone smile on-screen engenders a feeling of closeness but it’s again not at all real. There will never be an opportunity to shake that person’s hand, to give them a hug. They will only ever be a block of pixels.

And so of course this all feels terrible — and truly, it does. Our hearts and souls crave more than this, even when working. And because we are on screen as well, we have to try so much harder ourselves — to smile, to give the “thumbs up,” to indicate that yes, we really are human, we’re not just pixels on a screen.

But, sadly, pixels really are all we are, as long as this lasts, and at this point it seems it will be forever. The advantages are so great — work from anywhere with others from anywhere — that there is no turning back.

I liked the hidden places to study not because I disliked other people, quite the opposite. I wanted to carve out time to study so that when I was with others I could be fully present. But streaming one’s video is the worst of all worlds: there is no presence at all, and never will be.