What had once been life’s quiet moments of solitary reflection — a few minutes alone on a bus, or walking to work, or waiting for an appointment — now felt unbearable, and people impulsively reached for their phones, their ear buds, and their games, unable to fight the addictive pull of technology. Dan Brown, Origin.
I don’t want to feel like an old foggy by complaining about what Brown describes so well, and we witness every day. For the truth is that the phenomena of addiction to electronics is as much our fault as the technology makers and the young people who are so addicted.
My yoga teacher specializes in teaching children’s yoga. (Maybe, that’s why we get along so well.). She describes her students at first as having a hard time with sitting still and meditation, but she says with a lot of patience, the children learn and ultimately grow to love their time without electronics.
Longtime readers of the Pew may remember how I used to write about riding the bus in DC and how special that time of solitude and observation was for me. But have I tried to teach others about “life’s quiet moments.” Not well enough.
If you or I want to complain about electronic addiction, we have an obligation to instruct on the benefits of “life’s quiet moments.”
The wisdom you acquire with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it. –– Esther Williams
Peace – freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.
Peace is thrown about all the time and has been such an enormous part of our lives (the freedom from or the cessation of war or violence variety) that I fear we have lost sight of freedom from disturbance – and the soul nourishing lack of activity imbued in quiet and tranquility.
Meditation has also drifted into an active definition (as in meditating over something) versus the ultimate benefit of divorcing oneself from reality in a metaphysical state. We are all drifting into the Stranger Things’ “Upside Down” or Dark Matter’s alternate reality to find some sort of escape. Not necessary if we really seek peace or meditation as you have described; thanks for the heads up–or is it heads down?
Great comment! Thanks!