I ride my bicycle 50 or 60 miles every week in a mix of roadways, walking and bike paths and parks. The added benefit beyond exercise is the opportunity to observe people close-up. What I notice the most is that the majority of people create around themselves a shield or wall of insularity courtesy of electronic devices. Headphones, ear-buds and cell phones indicate to the outside world that not only is no inter-personal interaction sought, it is outwardly discouraged. They might as well hang a sign around their necks that says, “Do Not Disturb.”

A walk in the park serenades you with song-birds, rustling trees, babbling streams, laughing children, buzzing bees and the casual greetings and conversations you will not have when you block it all out in order to be left alone. Everything electronic can be viewed or heard at any time. Every moment of you life, if you stay in the moment, is un-recordable, un-reviewable as it passes into yesterday.

As I bike past a young mother and her baby in a stroller, I alone hear the soft coos from the infant as mom has her head buried in her phone, tuned out.