Things I have remembered as of late : we put ourselves into a transe-like mode to not see the things that want to be seen.
In less cryptic language: we numb ourselves down by using mindless distractions, drugs, media and technology overload, cheap intimacy, facebook binges, vain pursuits.
Truly we are letting ourselves be used. It is time to reclaim our power over our selves.
Let this account be a witness of the journey back to me.
“Who is fit to govern others?
He who governs himself.
You might as well have said: nobody.”
~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
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4 am. The noise from the street woke me up.
First move is reaching for the so-called smart phone.
I can’t even think a straight thought but my hunger for clicking is intact. Automatic.
Must connect. Must eagerly search for a red dot that means I am loved. Must keep refreshing till numbness ensues.
(The irony, it is called ‘refresh’ yet makes you feel anything but.)
It is an addiction in the real sense of the word. The worst you feel, the more you click. The more you click, the less you feel.
The less you breathe. The less you live.
It is killing you. And yet you continue.
++++++
“Conscience whispers, but interest screams aloud.” ~J. Petit-Senn
You badly need to stop.
But it seems beyond your control.
The resistance, thick as a rock, is fueled by a fear, thin as a veil.
++++++
What will find if I stop and dare to breathe??
I know it just too well. The familiar pain. My BFFs of agony.
The crazy mid-night loneliness, the vertiginous emptiness,
The anxiety-fueled thoughts, the what-if-that-was-it,
The thoughts I can’t even think out loud in such a public space.
So I reach for the mindless.
Connections that have lost their soul, fingers running through the minuscule keyboard, a makeshift music of clicks keeping me company.
Yes. Indeed I know it just too well.
The hiding from my own sight.
Like a child who thinks the world won’t see her because she is covering her eyes.
Not even gifting myself the gift of breath.
++
What lies behind the thin veil of breath?
Freedom, power and finding that I am in fact the one covering my fears is such sophisticated attires. Such a precious, elaborate craft.
Some days breathing truly is the most courageous act.
++++++
You find yourself exulting in joy when the connection shows signs of deficiency.
Thank God things don’t always work they way you want them to.
So you praise the faulty signal a hundred, a thousands times for giving you your power back.
Truly, you have become a slave to the machine.
The funny thing is we know when the well is almost empty and we keep draining it. We know when the blessing of information/connection starts mutating into a mindless distraction, self sabotage and procrastination . It’s exhausting!
But the again, it’s not always like that.
This ether-like space is for me a huge source of discovery, joy and possibilities, and yet, I can feel full/ stimulated/connected one minute, and the next one be so sick of it I want to puke.
I guess, balancing the contradictions could perfectly be the main theme in my life.
Que estes bien,
Caro
yes.
Gracias querida
xox
Stunning.
…I _am_ relieved, sometimes, when the connection goes, because then I feel I’m allowed to go and do something else.
That’s…not okay.
Thanks for pointing that out.
I know its amazing how we give our power away… to the machine.
time to be more mindful with our online life.
Its all a learning process I guess!
emptiness is an awful feeling the problem is no matter what we try to cover it up with, in reality it is still there. we have to fill ourselves with self love and the rest is easy.
Nicely stated Bahieh
I often wonder what the fall-out of all of this will be 20, 30 years down the line.
Thanks Rene. I guess we’ll have to live to see!