Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode 34

Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own life, being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or some fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.



Episode #34. Life with Lifeless Friends

Paul believed in all the positive sides of working with inanimate objects. As a head tester in the lab for developing functional workout gear, his past two decades have only been spent with dummies that have myriads of pores (like those of human skin) on the treadmill. For the purpose of creating top tier workout clothes and shoes, Paul’s dummy friends had to keep moving and running with assiduities in the contrived environments of extreme temperature and humidity level. They never complain or rebel in simulations of Death Valley or arctic land.



The first thing that communicated with Paul in the morning was always Alexa sitting right next to his bed. To almost every question that came to Paul’s mind was totally expecting or depending on Alexa’s quick answers. From the day’s weather to local stores’ hours to the best online HIIT program even to the unanswerable questions like “Alexa, what do you think of me?” Each time Alexa gave him clueless response to the question, Paul thought some day she would say she loved him or at least just liked him. 



On his way to a new place in town, there was obviously Navigation system he named ‘Ms. Leading Lady’. By the time he got back home from work, his robotic vacuum named ‘Spicky’ had already turned his entire studio into the state of spick and span space from wall to wall. Its silent flickering that indicated “FINISHED” seemed like a quiet and smiley friend who willingly came out to clean his place without trying to fish for some compliments or “thank-you” in return. His roboCat that was always beside him whenever he needed him was another close buddy that never asked him for anything as long as it was properly charged. All these gadgets and gizmos were far from being annoyance in Paul’s life, encapsulating what kind of human Paul is. He was not a sociable person who delighted in being with other humans or any type of living things that could possibly expect something from him.

Years and years of savoring frozen entrees cooked by microwave had gradually made Paul tired of the same old taste of his prepackaged daily meals. He had become bored, petting the cold metal skin of his roboCat and reached a point of feeling miserable when unplugging the charger from roboCat’s shiny ass. No longer enthusiastic about flaunting the squeaky clean wooden floors (vacuumed by Spicky) on social media. So extra. Everything in his life felt phony, barren, and empty. When he feels like cracking a joke, there was nobody in his space and life that would give him even a bunch of canned laughter.





On our final session at my office, Paul asked me if he would need some medication or any type of online programs to sleep better and fix his chronic loneliness. I smiled at him, and he quietly smiled back at me. A minute or two had passed without a single word from me and him. Paul said “Dr. J, that smile looks so real and alive. Different from yesterday’s and possibly from tomorrow’s. Guess it’s time for my lifeless friends to take some serious respite now.” Paul seemed the most humanlike for the very first time ever since I’d known him. 







Expressions

     

     1.   assiduities: constant or close application or effort; diligence; industry

     2.   to rebel: to resist or rise against some authority, control, or tradition

     3.   spick and span: spotlessly clean, neat, and tidy

     4.   to encapsulate: to sum up or to summarize/ to condense

     5.   extra: excessive/ way too much

     6.   phony: adjective to describe anyone who takes the effort to look or act differently than they normally would to impress others.

     7.   barren: lifeless, bleak, unproductive

     8.   canned laughter: used by almost all American comedies which if you listen closely enough you can hear the winding of the laughter going round and round mechanically

     9.   respite: a brief period of rest and recovery between periods of exertion