Touching Home Base

Visser ( The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude , p. 118) notes, “The mobility of modern life demands . . . that our personal links receive repeated affirmation. The close-knit small social worlds that we create, like islands in the sea of our mass society, are essential to our well-being. The mobile or cell phone fills just such a purpose: people anxiously keep in touch with intimates as though each separation, each outing, means a foray into an alien jungle. Most cell-phone calls perform obsessive, minute-by-minute maintaining of contact with home base: ‘I am just approaching the parking lot.’ ‘I’m in the bus now.’ And so forth.”