"It's sad. . ."

One afternoon, I was walking back to my house from my office. My friend Joe was walking towards the administration building, so for part of the way we walked together. 

We were both staring down at our phones, checking text messages and such, when Joe looks up and says, "It's sad, right?"

I wasn't paying much attention, so I said "What?" before I realized I knew what he said. "Oh, what's sad?"

"What technology makes us. Staring down at a phone all day." 

I smiled and humphed. "Yeah, crazy."

That's as far as our conversation went. He went into the building and I headed on for home. I put my phone away and decided to just listen. Try and see how many things I could hear. The wind rustling the leaves, the cars on the street, the footsteps, crickets, a couple of birds, the lawn sprinklers, some conversations, a grasshopper flying--all of a sudden, so much more became alive.