In a recent excellent 2-part CBC radio documentary "Re-wiring Our Kids", host Pauline Dakin presents evidence suggesting that we're becoming so engrossed in & distracted by digital media, that our awareness of our own emotions is markedly dampened. Digital distraction may well be today's "opiate of the masses."
https://www.cbc.ca/atlanticvoice/2014/02/20/re-wiring-our-kids/
Yet isn't it our emotions that warn us that we're suffering, and our emotions that energize us to make changes in order to improve the quality of our lives?
Mindfulness practices serve as a potent, vital antidote to the mind-numbing effects of digital distraction, materialism, cynicism, etc.
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| Resident of Tuscany |
"'I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is - I am out of my senses.... What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?' Henry David Thoreau
'Shake off the village' - what a great way of expressing a vitally important human need. Since Thoreau's time, the village has grown exponentially bigger and become more intrusive and seemingly intimate - giving us the semblance of connection without any of the real benefits of connection. Technology has enabled the village to become exceptionally good at not allowing us to shake it off. With the advent of the smartphone, getting away from it all is no longer as easy as simply getting up and walking away. And, increasingly, people are making the choice not to even try to shake off the village - surrendering to a life of distractions, with the result that, as Thoreau put it, we are living much of our lives out of our senses. Wayne Curtis calls them 'the digital dead, shuffling slowly, their eyes affixed to a small screen in their hands.'" Arianna Huffington
The whole article is well worth reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/hemingway-thoreau-jeffers_b_3837002.html
