I get on the treadmill and plant my earbuds in each ear. After that, I never look at my phone. The gym is a beggar’s banquet of characters for my writing. The gray-haired woman who always wears the same tie-dyed t-shirt. The sculpted blonde in the pink weight vest who possesses the most sculpted body in the place. The retired high school football coach who daily hits on a gorgeous Asian woman half his age without an ounce of fat on her. These people could all find themselves as protagonists in my stories.
But there is a bigger story. One day I exited the bathroom in the equipment area. Rows of equipment crowd the floor. I looked along one row, searching for the unique face worthy of populating my story setting. Along the row, sitting on various pieces of equipment were four men, semi-muscled, thirtyish, their spines postured in classic question marks as they hunched over their phones. Not one looked up or exercised the entire time I observed them and then walked by, not even for a moment. What was on those screens that so gripped their attention?
Our country is being led by a person who claims he is protecting us from drug cartels who sell drugs and destroy lives. He has bombed boats and imposed economic blockades. Drugs are mind altering, body changing, sometimes lethal distractions. Addiction demands more and more of the addict’s attention, money, and mental health.
I wonder if this “leader” is going to intervene with organizations behind social media, that proven-to-be-addictive mind numbing, soul sucking, ubiquitous, sometimes lethal presence that permeates our lives.
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