Now there’s a good way to celebrate the 5th birthday of the little white (or black or pink but originally white) device, the walkman for the 21st century, the “kleenex” of portable MP3 players.

Nevermind that it brought apple back from the financial brink, or that it played no small role in the online music piracy war. I don’t care about that stuff. If apple hadn’t survived so well, I might not have bought the ibook laptop I wish I hadn’t. Whoa, did I just say what you think I said? Yup.

What this is really about is what I call pod-induced psychotic discord. No, there isn’t a new, barely-legally-safe-for-some-people-with-absolutely-no-health-conditions pharma-poison that I’m trying to sell cheap online from Canada. The cure for this disease of the disaffected is simple: unplug, pop the ear-buds out, take a deep breath and rediscover the world around you. This is really about being mindful.

Apple has some very smart people working for it. Very smart people often do very bad things. They have invented one of the most effective mindcontrol devices the real world, or even the sci-fi world for that matter, has ever seen. The hapless victims actually pay lots of cash for their mind-control devices, then pay even more cash to accessorize their servitude, and finally, continue paying for their mind-control programming. It’s pure, diabolical genius!

People are truly addicted to these innocuous-appearing machines. I have seen sheer panic as an ipod battery expired right before an afternoon commute home (apparently the radio stations available on the rest of the FM dial were not an acceptable option). The victim was so traumatized by this event, that he instituted a complex disaster avoidance plan so this would never happen again. Another podite I know was on his third ipod in as many years because of various failures of batteries, hard drive components etc. When asked why he didn’t try a competing MP3 player from another manufacturer, he just stared at me in disbelief, his face awash in insult.

Another insidiously nifty feature of the ipod is the fact that you don’t turn it off. You can’t. You pause it. When you pause something, you make a committment, however small, to return to it. The ipod keeps you coming back with a dose of electronic guilt. You couldn’t leave it paused forever, now could you?

I find some comfort in the fact that the apple people built in a warning signal for those of us still receptive enough to pick up on it. It’s called an i pod. That’s a pretty strong signal for me. I’ve seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers – the director’s cut. I know about pods and pod-people. They’re not going to take me. I won’t become one of them. I feel like Dr. Bennell at the end of the movie right now, running along the road, trying to stop the trucks full of pods and warn the human race about their doom. You probably think I’m just as crazy. But he wasn’t crazy – he knew the truth! They’ll take over your body, they’ll take over the world!

The other term casually tossed around whenever people refer to their ipods is their earbuds. The etymology of this term appears to be a mystery, but whoever coined it evidently intended a grave warning for humankind. Why would you stick something called a bud in your ear? Are you nuts? The interface of the pod is a bud. If this doesn’t sound an ominous admonition readily audible over the new Killers single, I don’t know if there’s any hope for our species.

Now that we understand a little more about the cause of pod-induced psychotic dischord, let’s take a look at the symptoms of the affliction. Sufferers are usually easily identified by the white buds buried in their ear canals, but there are more subtle indicators of infection to note. They include lack of response to verbalizations, involuntary head-swaying, a rythmic, trudging step and total lack of ocular reaction to third party hand gesturing. The ability to spot these symptoms will become an important skill for when the apple people figure out how to implant the earbuds directly in the brain and transmit the signal to them wirelessly.

The effects of this disease are far reaching and devastating. The affected have no connection to their surroundings, or other people. They become cut off from the pain and joy of others. They neglect to return greetings and let social interaction slide. They do not, however, turn to introspection. That would mean being in touch with themselves, their own emotions. They turn, instead, to the morphine drip provided by the white wires, and the opium buds they’re attached to.

The victims of this disease cut themselves off from the world around them. They deny themselves the wondrous cacophany of a comlex world. If they are unaware of their world, how can they know that it’s falling apart? How can they care if they’re plodding along to the soundtrack of their unlived lives?

This is how the powerful rule. This is how they so easily hide the truth from us. This is why we continue to consume our way to a burnt-out shell of a planet. We can’t hear the planet’s cries. If we can’t hear, we won’t see or smell either. We become lost in the aural ether we have paid hard-earned cash to buy for ourselves.

From lessons learned in history, the powerful don’t rest on their successes. They invent ever more ways to deliver crippling depersonalization: MP3 phones, tv phones, dvd players in cars and the list goes on.

You don’t need to be a victim. If you already are, there is a cure. Unplug, pop the ear buds out, take a deep breath and kill your ipod. You’ll feel better.