Watch where you’re going

Ever experience this: You’re showing a friend around the neighbourhood. They’re on the tallish side, so you warn them of an overhanging beam of wood. “Mind your head,” you say as you’re walking along.

Whereupon: SQUaa-eeeLLCH! One foot skids on a pile of dog poop.

So focused on letting someone else know about an approaching danger, we forget to watch our own step.

Occasionally (as in, most of the time, if I were more honest and less of a hypocrite), I feel like this after writing or public speaking. Case in point:

Missing the moment

Click here: https://crackedceiling.blog/2018/05/23/be-the-one-watching/
Or here: https://medium.com/@annvanwijgerden/be-the-one-watching-7b4452744c1a

This was a blog post warning about the risks of being so busy taking photos, so driven to digitally capture the moment, that we miss the actual moment itself.

Well, I might not be one for taking pictures right, left and centre…
(Unless there happens to be a well presented cappuccino, dessert, startling sunset, or colorful insect.)
… But I do miss the moment in other ways.

Comfort and distraction

To be more precise: I AVOID the moment, the awkward moments, the sad moments.
I’m starting to realize how I use the internet to sidestep confrontation.

I also reach for my phone for COMFORT.

Such easy access to instant comfort; instant distraction.
Scrolling through other people’s lives diverts my thoughts immediately.
Likes and hearts puff up my sinking ego, sooth my distress, evaporate my self-doubts.

Automatic reaction

The foot-in-the-poop alarm bells went off recently:
A friend had just told me some very sad news about one of their relatives.
Within minutes, (was it even within seconds?!?) what did I do?
As if by instinct, I reached for my phone and was diving into Facebook for distraction and comfort.

No one around me could see what I was looking at. I could have been checking for a taxi, for messages from family, for the time, or an important email, for all they knew.
The shame of the fatuousness, the inappropriateness of my action would probably have stopped me if those around me could have seen what I was seeing.

But I knew.
And, as soon as I was doing it, it stunk. To high heaven.

Escape hatch

And, if anything, this is worse than missing the moments, the good moments.

This is dumbing down my life.
This is numbing the pain.
So I don’t have to feel.
So I don’t have to think.

Do you recognize this? Or am I the only one so foolish as to allow a handheld device to constantly be my escape hatch?

Power vacuum

In the meantime, as, more and more frequently, we abdicate from reality – what will fill the void we leave behind?

And, taking this line of thought to its logical conclusion, wouldn’t an unthinking, unquestioning society filled with non-present individuals tend to present a nice, juicy vacuum for power hungry individuals to fill?

Time out

I need a Time Out:
Time to pause and reflect;
phoneless;
unplugged from the internet.
(Google can also wait.)

I wanna take a good look at the proverbial poop and say,

O-oh! NOT going there!