Do the iPhone 5 leaks make the launch less exciting?
A commentator says that, because he already believes he knows what the iPhone 5 will look like, he won't buy it. Is this odd? Or should we sympathize?
I am currently feeling quite sensitive, so when I see someone in pain, my instinct is to try to help.
I'm troubled, though, because today I encountered a man in pain and I'm not sure how to help.
His name is Todd Haselton and he writes for a site called TechnoBuffalo. I, though, found his plaintive pain on Business Insider.
This is how he described his pain: "I feel like I did when I snuck under my parent's bed when I was five or six and found all of my Christmas presents. I feel like I did when I realized, at that very moment, that Santa wasn't real and would never exist."
All of us have undergone trauma. We still do. Some things seem so incomprehensibly painful, a betrayal of our fundamental beliefs, that I'm not sure we ever fully get over them.
How else could psychiatrists afford such opulent offices on the Upper East Side?
Still, Todd Haselton's problem is a difficult one: he says that there have been so many leaks about the iPhone 5 that he just doesn't want one any more.
Of course there will be those who will feign maturity and sneer. They will offer such mature locutions as "Boo-hoo."
And yet, because I want to be helped when I am in pain, I want to help Haselton.
Todd, I must admit it seems that there have been more leaks about the iPhone 5 than there were from Sally Field's eyes at the Oscars.
But, you know, let me tell you a story.
Down in Cupertino, there's a mysterious department that's far below ground. It's full of people who have been unlucky in life, deserted by those whom they truly loved.
These people have sad, bulging eyes and neat, parallel lines running all along their foreheads. But they were specially selected in order to find solace in their darkness.
For they work in Apple's Department of Disinformation.
Cunningly, there is a sign on the door of this department. It reads: "Department of Information." And it is from here that so many rumors are thrust into the world.
It is these tired, forlorn souls who every day send plausible pieces of metal to blog sites in Japan. It is they who sprinkle bits of casing and cable through strange FedExes and mysterious postal deliveries.
It is they who held a small, private gin party not so long ago when it was finally revealed that iPad 3 would actually be called, hah, the new iPad.
Occasionally, they find it hard to conceive new ruses. Sometimes, they simply find different bloggers in different countries and give them the same ruses.
But please try and believe a little longer.
The folks at the Department of Information have seen and felt more pain than the average Hollywood actor's PR person.
They are like elves -- deprived of some of life's essences, but desperate to atone by bringing a touch of positive mischief into the world.
It's not long now, Todd. There might still be surprises. You might still feel your breast pocket shudder to life with shock and delight.
I hope this helps get you through these next -- and perhaps most painful -- days.