If one wants to make contact with another person, whether a friend or stranger, how does one do this? Certainly, they can go for a walk, or perhaps make a transaction in a store. They can go into a coffee shop and look at the people around them when they drink their coffee. They could also sit and look at pictures of people they feel close to that aren't there while drinking their coffee, or go to a drugstore to buy a pack of gum, and talk to someone 200 miles away and the person in front of them at the same time, interchanging between the two. With email and social networking available on people's cell phones, it's easy to connect with people who aren't there without speaking or emoting in any way.
In my own case, it seems that the more comfortable I become talking to people that aren't in front of me on my smartphone while I am amongst other people, the more skillful I become being in two places at once psychically, or, at being in neither place. It's a strange feeling when I really think about it, to be in between places. I often feel quite related to the world after talking to a good friend on my phone, but while engaged in conversation, I often have a sense of being nowhere, although it seems that I am physically.
When I am with my wife or a friend in a restaurant or on the street, and they are on their phones, I often feel like I am not in their world at that time, even though I am in very close proximity to them. Even if they give me some kind of sign to show me that they will be terminating their conversations soon, it's like they're saying to me that I will reappear in their surroundings when they finish their conversations. It's a strange sensation to have one's sense of placement in their own bodies' be determined in part by someone present, but not here.
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