Babbling Lunatics

As a child, I used to take walks in a forested area behind our house, and most of those walks would be quite lonely. Once in while, I would come across people I knew, and we would greet each other. Sometimes, I would come across complete strangers, but there would still be a cursory acknowledgment of the presence of a fellow human being, with a smile. It was as if the other person wanted to say, "Look, this is a forest. There is that bird on the tree, tweeting its life away. There is this big sloth bear I saw a few minutes ago, and am I glad that it ignored me. But, there you are, a fellow human being, and I am smiling at you since I can."

Very often, in the same forest, I would walk by a man, who seemed to be mentally ill. Sometimes, he would sit under a tree talking to himself. On some occasions, I found him sitting on the highest branch of a tree,  singing a melancholy tune. But, there was something very certain about our encounters. He would never acknowledge my presence as a fellow human being. And he would always be talking to himself. 

Today, I was taking a walk in a semi-forested area. And, I came across three people, all of whom were very clearly talking to someone on their cellphones. They walked by me, and none of them acknowledged the presence of a fellow human being. And, they all seemed to be talking to themselves.

Later, in a completely different context, a colleague asked me what I thought was the biggest impact of cellphones on our lives. Almost spontaneously, I said, "Cellphones take perfectly normal human beings and make babbling lunatics out of them."

He seemed surprised, but I hope you understand.