Keeping It Real

One very odd feature of my relationship with my smart phone is that I'm generally reluctant to leave home without it, something I thought could never happen to me before I was forced to use the thing by the exigencies of work (and life in general.) But this isn't because I can't do without the device, though not having it with me at work can be mildly problematic on some occasions. No, the reason I want it on my person is because it counts my steps and I like to check the data.

I realised this with even greater force than usual yesterday morning when I went off to work. I had taken the unusual step (for me) of charging the phone whilst I was drinking my routine milo and forgot it wasn't in my pocket when I went downstairs. Now on this particular morning I had a duty to do before getting to the staffroom which was to deliver an in-person wake-up call for some of our students boarding in a hall adjacent to my own. Before I reached the door of their hall I realised I didn't have the phone. So, no big deal, you might think. Just do the duty then pop back upstairs to pick up the phone before walking across to my desk.

But it was a significantly big deal. I spent almost a minute thinking hard about going to get the phone right away, which was in any practical terms quite unnecessary, since counting all my steps going up and down various stair cases as I roused the kids from their dogmatic slumbers just didn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. Fortunately I forced myself to behave sensibly and go about the business that needed to be done without undue fuss. But, even now, I irrationally miss those steps turning into real numbers, despite getting all the actual benefit of making this old body do some mild early morning exercise.

The numbers have somehow become more real than the actual steps, and this despite the fact that I don't exactly trust the processes through which the numbers are delivered to me.

People are strange. Especially me.