In this super-cut, Louis CK shares humorous and insightful observations about our new constant companions – phones. Prompted by his young daughter’s desire to be like her friends, Louis would like to deny her request for a phone of her own. If denying a child her own cell phone sounds harsh, he his reasons. In part, Louis fears that the cell phone his daughter wants will take something important from her.
“You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That’s what the phones are taking away — the ability to just sit there,” he says. “Underneath everything in your life, there’s that thing — that forever empty thing. You know what I’m talking about? That it’s all for nothing and you’re alone.”
This may seem like heavy going, but Louis CK had much to say about the rewards of experiencing our emotional storms and sunshine alike. I don’t know if his insight would be possible had he not come of age when people had ‘a phone’ in the home, which did nothing more spectacular than ring, and was as mobile as St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
If numbing our emotions is damaging on an individual level, it is likely to be damaging to us as a people.But Louis isn’t mired in existential angst. Not when pesky friends IM to inform him of where they are, or what they’re eating. Don’t tell Louis, he does not want to know!
This is truly a ‘not-to-be-missed’ piece of work from an insightful comedian and observer of the human condition. Oh, and while it’s against his better judgement,I’ll bet you’ve guessed that daddy’s little girl now has her very own phone.