IN PRAISE OF INCONVENIENCE

It’s the missed trains, the awkward conversations, the canceled Grab bookings, the unexpected rain showers that drench our plans but give us stories to tell.

- RICARDO T. PAMINTUAN

(beyondthrilled.com)

In one Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, Calvin goes on a short monologue: “In the future, everything will be effortless. Computers will take care of every task. We'll just point to what we want done and click. We'll never need to leave the climate-controlled comfort of our homes! No nuisance, no wasted time, no annoying human interaction... Life is too inconvenient.”

Four frames, each fully loaded.

Since seeing that comic strip, I’ve talked to some young people, mostly of the Gen Z crowd, to pick their brains on these thought-provoking Calvinisms.

Well, yes and no on things being effortless. Computers are a big help, for work, but cell phones are the real lifelines.

“I can’t survive a day without my phone,” said one researcher from a Catholic university.

She told me that one time, she left her phone in her father’s car and spent the whole day fretting he might see her private files (never mind that it has both numeric and biometric security), while constantly reaching in her back pocket for her absent phone like a sorely missed phantom limb.

A former colleague, who’s had three employers in as many years since getting his economics degree, equated his phone with his life: “It contains everything that matters to me — contacts, photos, e-wallets, mobile banking and ridesharing apps, games, social media, even my application letters and CVs.”

He smirked when I asked why he didn’t save them in an external drive or his laptop. “They're backed up in the cloud.” Duh.

The Cloud. It’s better if you say it the way the Little Green Men chanted “The clawwww” in Toy Story.