I’M writing this from an airport lounge — flight was delayed, of course. What else is new? I’m three espresso shots in (purely medicinal), and while I’m not jittery, my brain is staging a full-on TED Talk without my consent. Somewhere between gate changes, overlapping announcements, and restless babies crying in surround sound, I wondered if this was where humanity’s evolution quietly stopped.

The thought hit me after a post from a good friend — let’s call him iCloud.
(We call each other that. He knows what I store, download, and occasionally reminds me of my most organized existential crises. The friendship is practically backed up on a server.)

Anyway, iCloud reposted a photo that hit harder than espresso: the classic lineup of the Three Wise Monkeys — one covering his eyes (see no evil), one covering his ears (hear no evil), and one covering his mouth (speak no evil). But next to them stood a fourth ape, gripping a smartphone with both hands.

Not covering his eyes — in fact, his eyes were glued to the screen.
Not covering his ears — earbuds in, noise out.
And not silent — mid-comment or halfway through a voice note.

All eyes. All ears. All mouth.
And yet… no heart.

That image hasn’t left me since. Because it says everything about where we’ve ended up in the long arc of becoming “civilized.”

The original three monkeys, for all their simplicity, stood for moral restraint. Don’t absorb evil. Don’t echo it. Don’t spread it. It wasn’t a flawless code to live by, but it came from a place of trying — of wanting to be better, even if we stumbled along the way.

This fourth ape?
Let’s call him what he is: Care No Evil.

Because he doesn’t care. Not from wisdom, but from Wi-Fi.

This isn’t the apathy of ignorance. It’s the apathy of overload.
He’s seen too much, heard too much, clicked too much.
Now, everything’s just noise.
War? Genocide? Corruption? The planet melting?
He’ll “react” to a post — right after watching a hamster bake cookies.

The phone isn’t just a tool anymore. It’s a world.
One where the screen is the only reality, and everything outside it becomes someone else’s problem.
This isn’t transcendence. It’s a disconnection in high definition.

We’ve evolved from hunter-gatherers to scroll-and-forgetters.
We don’t gather food — we gather content.
We don’t hunt meaning — we hunt dopamine.
We’re not unplugged. We’re unbothered.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not pretending I’m above it. I’ve doomscrolled with the best of them, then wondered why my soul is buffering. But at least the original monkeys knew when to cover their eyes. This new one? He’s not looking away. He’s watching, recording, even cracking a joke, while everything around him quietly falls apart.

Care No Evil isn’t enlightened.
He’s just busy: watching, reacting, consuming, ignoring.
Modernity didn’t elevate him. It sedated him.

So yes, thank you, iCloud, for the photo.
You captured evolution’s final download:
Not wisdom — just Wi-Fi.
Not consciousness — just constant connection with zero compassion.

And here I am, still waiting for this flight, surrounded by fourth apes of all ages.
It’s not just Gen Z. It’s not just Millennials. From the Silent Generation down to whatever TikTok is raising now — we’re all in it.

Eyes down. Ears blocked. Souls buffering.

Still brewing thoughts — no sugarcoating, just stories steeped in truth.

Published in celebration of Gold Star Daily’s 36th anniversary — the daily that gave birth to this column and, in the words of my ever-sarcastic, satirical (and stubbornly brilliant) EIC, “continues to deliver local news with grit and a dash of stubbornness.” Here’s to a newsroom that lives its mantra: “Comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable.”