Still alone together

Was at the neighborhood coffee emporium this morning, alone at the big table. Eventually five 20-somethings gathered at the other end. I was busy writing in my journal [some thoughts on the William Halsey Wood project manuscript] and glanced at my table mates: four of them were staring silently at their laptop computer screens (one playing air drums along with whatever was piped into his head through a set of earphones Princess Leia would envy); one was busy on his smart phone. They were aggressively “alone together”, not speaking, except to rotate a computer and point something out to one of the others, who would nod approvingly. I don’t think twenty words were uttered in twenty minutes. Then I had a stray actuarial thought.

Assuming eighteen years to a generation, I’d become intrigued by five people who were the age of my great-grandchild at the point he/she would have birthed my now one-year-old great-great-grandbaby. No wonder I haven’t the remotest notion of the current generation. I was pondering the state of late 19th century Anglo-Catholicism and its impact on church design. What do you suppose they were up to?

Five years ago I wrote something here on this new age of shared aloneness. Apparently things haven’t changed. Incidentally, I’m having coffee tomorrow morning with a few of them. I’m anxious to meet them—and learn something.