A happy man

Alex says he is happier now than he's ever been. He treated me to a lunch of chicken makhani at an Indian restaurant today and talked about how he spends his time. He’s single, and he isn’t looking for a love relationship. He has no computer, no tablet, no smart phone. He has a little flip-phone he uses moderately, mostly to make appointments. He doesn’t have an email address. He isn’t on Facebook. He doesn’t own a camera, doesn’t have cable, doesn’t watch TV. 

Mostly he spends his time in face-to-face interactions, in real time, with other people in our neighborhood. He’s the president of the renter’s association in the building where I live. So he interacts with everyone who lives here--roughly 350 people, all of us over 62 and “low income.” He attends meetings every week. “I show up,” he said, savoring a mouthful of dal. “At 73, I’m a young chicken in this crowd. There’s Betty Rae, who is 94 and plays a mean game of pool, and Betsy, 90, who edits the newsletter. They’re both as sharp and clear-minded as 40-year-olds. Like you, they’ve traveled the world. They’re full of stories. And then there’s Joe, who’s 87 and an opera buff, and Ray, who’s nearly 90 and reads philosophy in his spare time. The Chinese have been through hell and back, they were all there in Mao’s time and every one of them has a story....” He went on, rattling off names and demographic details, telling me what he admires about each person. He noted that this one is a “fuss pot” and that one is a “chatter-box” but he didn’t have anything damning to say about anybody. 

He rides his bike, knows all the parks and wild places around Portland. He has some good binoculars, and he watches birds. “It’s amazing what lives right here in the city: there’s a pair of nesting eagles I can see from my window. There are peregrine falcons, song sparrows, hundreds of birds that live right around us.” He listens to music and has an enormous collection of world music, some on CDs and some on tapes. Folk music from the Balkans, from Bolivia, from a tribe in Zimbabwe. He reads. He watches movies--DVDs, not streaming, on his 26-inch TV. He has every movie Laurel and Hardy ever made.  “I don’t miss TV. It was garbage and a waste of time. I have a radio, but I no longer listen to the news on it.”  But mostly he talks to people. Face to face. In real time.

After today’s roll-out of the Polaroid-Blipfoto merger, it was good to spend time with Alex and get a sense of proportion. Frankly, not everybody gives a damn about what happens to Blipfoto. It’s good to remember that.