It is 10 minutes past midnight. To my left, I have a box of refrigerated chicken popcorn from KFC, and to my right, I have my phone. In my phone, I have 57 tabs open; Wikipedia pages, they are.
The missus has abandoned me gone for a sleepover to a friend’s place and I have the house to myself. I snuggle under the blanket and reach for a book; ‘My name is red’. The data is switched off and the phone is a safe distance away, or so I think. Alas, no. I come across an intriguing word, reach for my phone and switch on the data. Google recommends Wikipedia; good friends they are. I read intently, for all of 3 minutes. Then, I long press and click on ‘open in a new tab’. Thus, begins the hopping; perpetual in scope and orgasmic in pay-off. Soon, I have 57 tabs open.
When I was growing up, during my primary school, there was a library in the neighbourhood. It was big, it was free and it was welcoming. Many a childhood hour was spent there; lost to the world and yet, at the same time, discovering it. Enid Blyton and Hardy Boys, Black Beauty and Charles Dickens; I devoured them all. And yet my favourite book was titled ’50 amazing facts’; the only one of them I remember yet is that ‘a cockroach can live for several weeks without its head’. I loved that fact. I still do.
As a child, I loved to read about things that I did not know. Some I understood, many I did not. Some I remembered, most I did not. Some I found useful, majority I did not. But it mattered not; there was a thrill, transient yes, but nevertheless, intoxicating, of learning something for the first time. And then school started; you were stupid if you did not understand, you were lazy if you did not remember and you were foolish if you spent time on something not useful.
But sometimes, the child in you prevails. It was just one tab at first. But soon I opened another, and then another, followed by a couple more. And now, I have 57 tabs open. Anthropology, archaeology, arts, cinema, etymology, geography, politics, religion, science and technology. Within those tabs, contain all of these and so much more.
As a child, I loved to read about things that I did not know. Some I understood, many I did not. Some I remembered, most I did not. Some I found useful, majority I did not. But it mattered not; there was a thrill, transient yes, but nevertheless, intoxicating, of learning something for the first time. And then school started; you were stupid if you did not understand, you were lazy if you did not remember and you were foolish if you spent time on something not useful.
But sometimes, the child in you prevails. It was just one tab at first. But soon I opened another, and then another, followed by a couple more. And now, I have 57 tabs open. Anthropology, archaeology, arts, cinema, etymology, geography, politics, religion, science and technology. Within those tabs, contain all of these and so much more.
The tabs will stay for a while. Gradually, I will close a few of them, some after reading and others, without. And knowing myself, one day soon, the phone will run out of charging or worse end up in a washing machine, and I will finally be able to get rid of all the tabs.
I must tell you though; a cockroach cannot survive a nuclear explosion, that is just a myth; do not believe it.
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