Syndromes

I check my phone whenever I have a pause between two things - as if each section of time needs to be filled with doing something; and thus feeling as if just standing there, without anything particular to do, would be unacceptable, I open the screen and look. I do it in the elevator, while I wait for the bus, or for the train, or while I queue up at the airport gate before a flight; even at the gym, between one set of reps and another. On top of this, on some of these occasions the silicone earbuds of my ipod (yes, I still have my trusty ipod) isolate me as much as possible from what surrounds me. Heifetz playing Tchaikovsky, or Schubert performed by Richter or the Tallis with Plaestrina proceed to block out the noises of the traffic, of the voices, and even of the announcements that I should be listening to: in other words, the people. The exercise is the following: I hold my smartphone, I open my mail box, Whattsapp, Telegram or the text messages, that by now pretty much only my telephone company sends, and I start browsing the messages. Then, without really reading them, but after having briefly looked at the names of the senders, I start deleting them