This one's kind of long and preachy. Apologies in advance...

Driving home from a night out with friends tonight, I thought for a moment about how much time we spend surrounded by machines. Never mind the fact that so many of us spend so much of our time in our cars, driving on roads surrounded by thousands of other cars, trucks, motorcycles, hybrids, dualies, 18 wheelers, smart cars, gas guzzlers, convertibles, sports cars, luxury cars, sport utility vehicles, sport luxury sedans, coupes, Beemers, Caddys, recalled Toyota Highlanders, junkers, low-riders, vans, Fords with owners who hate the dudes who drive Chevys for no reason other than that they drive a Chevy, even rare breeds like Bentleys, Maseratis, Maybachs, and the once common but now endangered species known as the Yugo. Don’t even think about all that time and all those machines.

Think about the thing in your pocket. No, not the button that automatically unlocks your car door, or trunk, or if you press the ‘panic’ function flashes the lights and honks the horn so you can find your car in the shopping mall parking lot evidently saving you from ‘panic’. That button counts too, but I’m talking about your cellphone. I don’t know about you, but the only time that I’m away from my phone for more than 10 minutes in a row is when I’m at the gym, using some other machines to make my heart and body stronger, and if I had the right kind of arm band, I’d take my phone with me there too.

Or what about the thing that I’m writing this little rant on? The computer. They are everywhere. Not just for work, not just for play, not just for home videos, and emails. They define our very existence. My computerized calendar tells me what to do and when to do it, my email tells me how much money is in my bank account and when my next bill is due, my recording software lets me give voice to the music in my mind, this word processing program gives voice to the fleeting and murky thoughts that flash through my grey matter.

Look, I know I’m not saying anything new here, but I want to remind anyone who reads these few words that there was a time, not so long ago, when there were no machines. When computers didn’t exist and the only voices heard by humankind were voices that were actually coming from other humans who were within earshot. I’m sure that there were some mouthy fools back then who got pretty annoying with their constant yammering, but still, I often wonder what it must’ve been like with no radios, no TVs, no loudspeakers, not to mention no cars, no airplanes, no cellphones and no computers. The sad thing, sort of, is that we will never be back in that time and that every passing second causes that life to fade one shade closer to white.

I have spent years and years driving around this country. Whenever I passed through the great plain states, I thought about the Native people who were here before us whiteys came over and unleashed small pox, gunpowder, lead, and alcohol on them. What was that life like? The most complicated machine they had was a bow and arrow. They had no need for psychiatrists, no need for youtube, or on-line pizza delivery ordering, no need for cellphones, or automatic shoe polishers. They did just fine without genetically modified corn and soybeans. They didn’t even have cancer. I mean, people got tumors and stuff, I’m sure, but it wasn’t something to end your life over with chemotherapy and radiation. You kept on going as long as you could and then you didn’t. Their simple, earthy existence kept them grounded, connected both to the land the lived on and lived off of, and to the people who shared that life with them. Consider for a moment the difference between connecting with someone via text message (omg, lol, cu l8r) and connecting with someone by sharing the spoils of the day’s hunt with them (take this meat and sustain yourself for tomorrow’s hunt, brother). In my mind at least, there is no comparison between the two. One is an abbreviated semi-speak translated through a machine, and one is genuine, necessary, and full of life.

There’s a lot of talk about being ‘connected’ these days. We have Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn,Twitter, Texting, instant messaging, chatrooms, Skype, and countless other connectivity tools. But just how connected are we? Many of us, myself included, live hundreds or even thousands of miles away from our families, the towns we grew up in, the people we grew up with. Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook for it’s pictures and the snippets of life that it offers and the fact that it does offer some contact with the people in my life. I just have a hard time calling this type of interaction ‘being connected’. Back in the day, if you wanted to talk to someone, you walked over to their teepee, or met them in the sweat lodge, or went to their house and connected with the actual person, not some disembodied, dithered-down, digitally sampled voice, or collection of profile photos with comments attached.

We can’t go back to this simpler time. We can’t destroy society and devolve into hunter-gatherers again. Our time is now and it’s here to stay. What we can do is to try to see the people that we do encounter throughout our lives as they are. Give them the gift of your attention. See them with your own eyes, and then imagine their eyes seeing you. Take every moment spent with an actual person and rejoice in it. Share yourself with the people around you, be a friend to your friends, be a lover to your lover, be a fighter to your rivals, be a sister to your sisters, and a brother to your brothers. Then, when you get in your four-wheeled machine to drive with the rest of ‘em, you will know that inside your car, with the radio on and the cellphone glued to your ear your humanity is a little bit more intact.