Thursday, January 26, 2012

Hurry up and wait

We as Americans seem to be in one giant competitive race with each other. Must have that new car with the built in NAV/DVD player, need the new I Phone, want that white picket fence, but whats the point? As William Powers points out in his book Hamlet's Blackberry modern humans seem to have lost our ability to think and act deeply as we glance from one screen to the next. So how do we combat this?
An effective way that I've always followed and wish to share to all is the art of unplugging. Whether it's once or twice a month I will spend time either with myself or a group of my friends but we'll all go someplace outside of our norm ( a friends ranch, state park, etc.) and leave the phones and Ipods behind. It is at these hours of total isolation from the rest of the world does my heart become in sync with the world around me and my smile starts to creep out. These hours, days, or even weeks of separation from the digital age reminds my friends and myself what the true value of life is. It's not the breaking twitter feed or the recently uploaded Facebook picture of a friend making a regrettable pose but rather the time we've spent with our friends a family. It is that time that we can not take back and how we spend our time determines who we are. With this being said I challenge all who read this (if anyone actually does) to leave their phone at the house and go to a state park for the day with a friend or two, a frisbee or football and see how relaxing it is to become a little kid again. Be an adventurous scavenger searching the world for a thrill and utilizing every second of light the sun has given you today. Those are the memories that you will cherish and remember, not the memories of another day spent wasting around surfing the internet and watching TV.

I leave you with this excerpt from Hamlet's Blackberry that was originally published in 1970 in the book How to be Your Own Best Friend:
"Someone who cannot tolerate aloneness is someone who doesnt know he's grown up. It takes courage to let go of that fantasy of childhood safety. The world may never seem so certain again, but what fresh air we breath when we take possession of our own separateness, our own integrity! That's when our adult life really begins."

Thursday, January 19, 2012

"The man whose horse trots a mile in a minute doesn't carry the most important message" -Henry David Thoreau

This weeks reading was about how wrapped up the developed world has become with our "screens". Whether it the average American spending 8.5 hours a day in front of a screen to Internet Rescue Camps in South Korea and China rescuing internet addicts our societies value and spend to much time plugged in. But how do we curb this alarming trend? The answer is simple, self control.
People should inherently feel bad about being reserved and sitting in front of a screen for long periods of time but apparently many dont. the fact that fancy hotels have emerged that market themselves for being "black holes" where there is no internet or cell phone reception shows how our once luxury is becoming a burden. According to the article there is even science stating that spending time in a quiet rural environment is great for your brain. But what does this mean?
Hopefully as time passes more and more people discover that they dont need to be plugged in at all times. That in fact there is nothing better than spending a day under the sun and with good company.