The news yesterday, when not preoccupied with the Icelandic volcano, was buzzing with reports that an Apple employee had left his new iPhone (as yet unreleased to the public) in a bar where its significance had not been missed.  Was this a disastrous error by a (presumably soon-to-be-ex) employee?  Or was it a clever piece of conspiratorial marketing strategy?

That anyone cares about such a non-story is a sign of the times.  Not only does it reveal once again that actually phoning anyone is the least important function of a phone these days (Phone somebody?  That's like so totally yesterday and for you know losers and stuff, as my niece would no doubt tell me); it also highlights once again the vital component of aesthetics for consumerism: how much money is spent in this world on items that do things we don't really need done but whose acquisition makes us feel cool, better about ourselves, superior to those around us, or inadequate if we don't possess them?  

Above all, the iPhone phenomenon speaks of the need to be continually occupied with texts, tweets and whatever.  The obsession with texting and these other phenomena is indicative of the general noise we need to generate to keep ourselves occupied.   One of those things which calls to mind Pascal: the measure of true human being is the ability to sit alone in silence in a room.   Were we to do that, in our fallen state we would have no choice but to face our own mortality, the ultimate hopeless futility of our existence without God.

Have a nice day.