Humanity Among Technology

 

No doubt about it, everywhere we go today we are bombarded with the fact that technology is advancing in leaps and bounds and making our lives easier by the second.  We can pay bills, order clothes and do our banking while sitting squarely upon our bottoms parked in front of the computer monitor.  We are never more than arms length away from our own personal phone, even when driving.  Hand held devices take the place of calendars, appointment books, and bits of string once tied around our fingers for both memory enhancement and luck.  The media bombards our senses and our inner unconscious minds with messages meant to insight and trigger various reactions through psychological and biological chemical reactions. Our homes, once thought of as the symbol of our personal castle, are also now bombarded by and inundated with technology at every step of the way.  These advances have made out lives easier, and freed up more time for noble pursuits such as reading, studying and drinking larger and larger fattening coffee drinks to stay awake so we can play online poker. Along the way however, much of our humanity has gotten swept aside.

 

By humanity, I mean those aspects of life that are inherently human.  The things that exist regardless of class, situation or technology.  Things such as: the desire for touch, a need to feel loved, a place of comfort to call home, platforms on which to share ideas, the ability to create.  True, these are not prevented by technology and in some ways can be enhanced, but all too often they are thought of as being unnecessary fluff.

 

Around a given office, we see computer screens, computers themselves that give off a steady high pitched whine, printers and electronic wireless phones that send a constant stream of radio and electromagnetic waves through our bodies. And we wonder why more and more people are suffering from allergies, obesity, colds and general fatigue.

 

As you look around your environment now, there are probably 2 or 3 reminders of the modern world and technology around you, but how many reminders of humanity are there?  Another way to think of humanity might also be "our place."  When we think of our connection to humanity we think about our place in the world and what that means.  Our Place is the relationship we share with the earth, the animals, the planets, the air and the water we rely upon for life.

 

Looking around your home, and your office, get a sense of weather it is what you describe as warm and cozy, a sort of nest or comfy calm place in which you really feel like you can be equally comfortable in a variety of situations. You should be comfortable there with company, having friends over to play cards, making tea for a single neighbor, and you should be comfortable spending time there completely by yourself.

 

As you build a sense of Your Place in the world, get a sense of where your environment can be re-infused with humanity. Placing a plant on your desk, a hand made drawing on the walls, a small comfy quilt on the floor under your desk where you can take off your shoes and rest your bare feet on the texture of the blanket while you type and E mail.

 

Arrange yourself to see sunlight, and begin to limit your exposure to the technological bombardment that surrounds most of us each and every day.  Give yourself an alarm clock that rings after a certain amount of time online, on the phone, watching TV, and take that bell as  s signal to turn off those connections to the modern world, light a candle and simply sit, in quiet, and think about those people in our lives that bring us happiness.

 

Take a moment to visualize the air coming from your nostrils, as a white mist or white light, and imagine how the air connects to the air still within your body.  Consider too, that each breath in and out, there is ever a point where that air is disconnected from the rest of the white light in the world.  Realize too that you breathe from every pore, from your hands your knees and your feet.

 

Simply think about your breathing in and out for a few minutes, and see the white light connected to the breath still inside your body and outside your body.  Slowly expand the boundary of the white light that surrounds you as you breath in and out, and imagine that field radiating in all directions and reaching out in all ways until it meets a similar field of someone of noble thoughts on the other side of the earth.  For a moment, think of the push and pull as you each take turns inhaling and exhaling your own small section of that huge field of white light that connects you and realize that as this has gone on for millions of years, the very breath you breath has been breathed by monks, scholars, vagabonds and cave men alike.

 

Take some time to reconnect to humanity whenever and wherever you can, and notice with some interest how much more refreshing the office and that computer become.  Notice how much more in tune you seem to be with your own body mind and soul. and enjoy the day, when the sun rises, until it no longer does!