"Think about all the time in one's daily life we as a modern society are absorbed in the attention we give twirl electronic devices."
Putting aside for the moment what happens after one dies, and let's assume for this little question that you only live once, each moment in one's life is unique, and never to be repeated. On the surface this is something everyone knows and acknowledges. Now think about all the time in one's daily life we as a modern society are absorbed in the attention we give twirl electronic devices. I bit the average for most people is several hours a day. Next time you take public transit have a look around and you will see many people, almost mindlessly quietly interacting with their phones and other devices. There is also a good majority of people with earbuds completely tuning out the world, and to some extent reality.
This is a completely new situation for the human animal, at least that's how I see it. We may be closer to the original themes of the Mattrix movie then anyone would care to admit. Riding home today on transit I was struck by how quiet it was and no one was really making eye contact. Faces buried in the various devices… You could tell most people were just trying to make it home and ignore the current boring reality by distracting themselves. But what made the event boring? Everyone reading this knows the answer, it was boring because no one was interacting. I wonder how conscious people on my train were of this fact. It's over an hour ride from Vancouver to Surrey British Columbia each way twice a day. When you work it out that it's over 730 hours a year if one were to do this every day that would add up to an entire month. Which is just gone… A month of adventure, a month of discovering, a month of being loved and loving. All missed because we are distracted. The human lifespan is not all that long, and even when they manage to extended to 150 years with the coming technologies in the scheme of things that still short.
Your entire life, is a one time event, which just happens to take 80 or so years to unfold. And even if there is a glorious afterlife for humanity it will be different than this reality. There will be things you miss, because it just won't be the same.
Before the masses were so distracted people worked together, played and occasionally had arguments together. Indeed, they did also two things together, and the human being at heart have evolved to do just that, in concert with one another or with the group. Not alone. Even introverted people when you examine their lives closely have a few cherished connections throughout their lifespan. They may indeed understand the topic better than most of us because the quiet introverted people I know cherish their realities and are usually not caught up in distraction. For some of them the world is too real, and so they pull away for a while. For the rest of us we need to find a balance between these two extremes. Cherish being aware of every moment whenever you can. It never does repeat.
The above few paragraphs just occurred to me as I was travelling home tonight and I wanted to get them down "on the modern equivalent of paper". Comments are welcome of course.
Patrick Clark
This is a completely new situation for the human animal, at least that's how I see it. We may be closer to the original themes of the Mattrix movie then anyone would care to admit. Riding home today on transit I was struck by how quiet it was and no one was really making eye contact. Faces buried in the various devices… You could tell most people were just trying to make it home and ignore the current boring reality by distracting themselves. But what made the event boring? Everyone reading this knows the answer, it was boring because no one was interacting. I wonder how conscious people on my train were of this fact. It's over an hour ride from Vancouver to Surrey British Columbia each way twice a day. When you work it out that it's over 730 hours a year if one were to do this every day that would add up to an entire month. Which is just gone… A month of adventure, a month of discovering, a month of being loved and loving. All missed because we are distracted. The human lifespan is not all that long, and even when they manage to extended to 150 years with the coming technologies in the scheme of things that still short.
Your entire life, is a one time event, which just happens to take 80 or so years to unfold. And even if there is a glorious afterlife for humanity it will be different than this reality. There will be things you miss, because it just won't be the same.
Before the masses were so distracted people worked together, played and occasionally had arguments together. Indeed, they did also two things together, and the human being at heart have evolved to do just that, in concert with one another or with the group. Not alone. Even introverted people when you examine their lives closely have a few cherished connections throughout their lifespan. They may indeed understand the topic better than most of us because the quiet introverted people I know cherish their realities and are usually not caught up in distraction. For some of them the world is too real, and so they pull away for a while. For the rest of us we need to find a balance between these two extremes. Cherish being aware of every moment whenever you can. It never does repeat.
The above few paragraphs just occurred to me as I was travelling home tonight and I wanted to get them down "on the modern equivalent of paper". Comments are welcome of course.
Patrick Clark
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