Every day, I walk around, and I see text-tards walking all over the place.

People oblivious to other people.

Walking across the street, texting as they walk across the street, holding cars up as the light turns green.

People walking down the street almost colliding with each other because they’re text absorbed.

And the worst kind of text-tard is when I was driving up a 101 Freeway. There was no traffic at all, which is a rarity in Los Angeles.

And a guy was going so slow in the left lane, 62 miles an hour to be exact. I flashed my lights, which really means get the fuck out of the left lane, asshole, you’re holding up traffic.

He won’t move. I’m thinking is he an asshole. No. We’re going to find out something way deeper in a minute.

So I moved to the middle lane, and I looked as I passed him, and sure enough, he is staring at his phone as he’s driving slowly. God knows what he’s looking at. He could be looking at Facebook, could be texting somebody, could be reading the newspaper online. But he’s absorbed into the vortex called his iPhone.

It’s amazing every single day how many people I see texting their lives away and not present to everyday life. It’s quite sad, because you miss things that are so beautiful.

As I was driving on the 101 that night, it was kind of a warm.

There were actually clouds, which is very rare during the blue season.

For those of you who don’t know the blue season, the blue season is basically June, July and August and September where the sky just remains blue, and there’s barely a single cloud in the sky. But tonight, there were lots of clouds, and there was one of the most spectacular, red sunsets I’ve seen in Los Angeles in a while.

But if you’re a text-tard, you would have missed the absolutely beautiful sunset.

Not only do you miss sunsets, you miss your exits.

How many times do you see people shoot across the freeway at the very last minute like it’s the first time they’ve ever driven on that road? Most likely text-tards.

You miss connection because you’re so busy answering an important text from someone who’s not even there. You miss the opportunity to meet somebody who’d like to flirt or be with you.

You miss conversations with people because you’re sitting there texting other people instead of paying attention to your friends.

And you miss moments with your children because you’re answering texts. We’ve become a nation of text-tards.

And it’s sad because every single time you reach down to look at your phone, you’re disconnecting from the magic of what life truly is.

Do an experiment. Count the amount of times a day that you actually look at your phone.

Go ahead. Count them.

Whatever that number is, I want you to realize that that’s the amount of missed opportunities, missed moments, and missed connections that you had in life.