There’s music we each enjoy that we recognize as being a guilty pleasure. What’s beautiful about the spectrum of art is that what’s a guilty pleasure for one person might be integral for another person. Like Tom Petty’s unyielding use of the same several chords might cause a person to detest his music, yet that same person might find the immediacy of time slip away as she feels that she, too, is running down a dream while working on a mystery and going wherever it leads. I love Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and had it serve as my “send tune” a couple of years back, delighting in the absurdity of rolling up to a crag with the windows down and screaming along with Cyndi as she laments the boys who hide their girls from the rest of the world. That sort of jam gets the blood pumping and ready to cruise some hard routes, truly. I don’t fault anyone who disses a pleasure of mine, and I get why they’d dislike it. For, I have no interest in your rock-out to Journey; however, I do appreciate that you derive something meaningful from their music.
On this note, I have possessions that are guilty pleasures. Like, my Apple Watch embarrasses me. In the DC area where people seem consumed by ideas of meritocracy, affluence, power, pedigrees, and other constructs of these ilk, you see a good number of people with such watches. They’re not uncommon, and it seems that with each wave of updates to the hardware more people succumb to their allure. When I was in Seattle back in February, that no one seemed to wear smartwatches struck me. I felt like an outlier; it was like I was thrust back a few years when I first secured mine, an outlier of sorts who appears to outsiders to have too much money while also kneeling too much at the altar of Apple.
It’s a frivolous, silly purchase. Not to say it doesn’t provide perks, for it does. Tracking miles during runs is wonderful. Having the device stream info at me as I gasp for air can prompt me to go farther than I might have otherwise traveled. There’s something inspiring about feeling energized, seeing that I have logged X miles, and knowing that I possess the time and energy to accrue Y more miles. It also provides other fleeting benefits, like timing planks or sessions on a systems board. Use of a phone can handle such tracking, but it’s a little more streamlined a process, for me at least, to use the watch. Also, being that I’m a slave to notifications, it keeps me away from my phone, easy it is to see the watch update, and move on with life, rather than finding myself holding my phone and then possibly playing with it, thereby squandering time.
I realize this last example reveals a bigger issue: my battle with distractions and weakness for immediate gratifications. The ability to control music, podcasts, and other media from the wrist has proven quite useful as well. But, again, if applying a stamp that reads “trivial,” “unnecessary,” or “exorbitant trinket,” then you could press such a stamp against the watch. And, then, after having done so, reach for each of those other stamps to press each of them against the device as well.
Anyway, the main reason I want to mention the watch, which apparently “required” an extensive disclaimer regarding the fact that I own it, is that it amuses me with its feedback. Most days I go for a run before noon, but if I’m busy with work then I might not go until later in the day. Around the time I’d have wrapped up the run on a normal day, it’ll display an alert, something like: “Your move and exercise rings are usually further along by now.” For those not in the know, the watch tracks three metrics each day: (1) whether you stood and walked around for 3 minutes each hour, (2) how many minutes you spent exercising, and (3) how many active calories you burned, completion of rings indicates your progress toward a goal that you’ve set for each of metrics. It provides other messages, all along these lines. Some are supportive: way to go, you closed all three rings. Others, usually sent around the time you’re in pajamas, are prodding, “A brisk, X-minute walk should [allow you to close your move ring].”
Eventually, I hope they’ll provide more control over these messages. I picture a range of checkbox or range selector options that allow you fine tune the tone of the messages. Want more snark? Want abusiveness? Passive aggression feedback? Aggressive prodding? Insults? Pleading? “Listen, I know you’re a lazy POS, but maybe you could at least pick up the phone to call the ambulance for what’s surely a coronary in your future.” What also cracks me up is that unless you’re full-on every day, the watch is never satisfied. You could completely crush your targets for ten days straight and then on day eleven you simply wish to rest, for maybe you’re sore, barely able to move, having done ten back-to-back ultramarathons followed by hundreds of push-ups and an hour of abs focused HIIT. Nonetheless, the watch will jab you: “hey, WTF, why’s your move ring look like crap today.” It’s insanity.