“Don’t you want your new phone? It’ll only take a few minutes for us to transfer the—” “No,” I said. “I really don’t. I’ll pick it up in a couple of days.” It was to laugh, the expression on her face. She seemed to view the very concept of removing one’s self from the world of Angry Birds and Yelp and Google Maps as a cross between heresy and psychosis. Maybe she was right. Maybe I’d go home and make a bonfire of my Kindle, iPod, Roku box, flat screen, DVR, and computer. After that I’d move to a cave in the woods and bay at the moon. OW-OW-OWOOOOO! OW-OW-OWOOOOO! Untethering myself from the world that way was a small gesture, I know, barely more than a nod or a wink in the scheme of things. I’d never been a fan of the grand gesture. Those things seemed like façade and artifice, brightly colored balloons—bloated, pretty objects meant to distract, to capture your attention, but ultimately empty and quickly forgotten. In my life, it had always been the little things that stayed with me.
