Written: 22nd Feb 2010 | Last Updated: 22nd Feb 2010
How do you find real peace and quiet anymore?
We’re almost, to a person, wired 24/7, electronically reachable by family, bosses, friends and enemies even if we’re asleep, or studying bird-eating spiders on the upper reaches of the Amazon, or searching for shells on a tiny Pacific island. It has got out of hand even before we imagined it could, or would, and now feels, threateningly, like there’s no going back to Pleasantville.
Before computer chips (and political correctness) stole old-fashioned life, we could dream in the backyard hammock or take the dog for a long walk, dig in the rose garden or paint a watercolour, play with the kids in snowdrifts in the park or fish in the lake - and not feel guilty if we missed the ring of the telephone. Yes, it could have been an important call, it may have been a vital one, but most likely it would have been some incidental thing, nothing dramatic or needing immediate attention, and certainly not significant enough to stop us living the life we wanted to live. Our stress levels were lower because, well, there wasn’t as much stress! Yet it’s now generated at a frantic rate, almost as a life force, simply because it can be.
How to change it?
You can isolate yourself by not owning a mobile telephone, computer or pager; you can pull the hardwired phone from its socket; you can never answer a knock at the front door. But that’s not living, it’s hiding. So, if you want to be a part of modern life, but not pay the price of it, what to do?
Well, for a start, you can begin by NOT carrying your mobile phone everywhere; this frees you up immediately from responsibilities that might potentially stress you out. And the important thing here is to not feel guilty for taking a small break from those who need you, your attention or your money. It’s YOUR life, remember? Make some choices. Take control.
You can choose NOT to take your computer everywhere; this releases you from the tyranny of work, e-mail, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, you name it. Imagine not having to read/write/edit/delete all that STUFF, all day long! Hooking up with the office when you’re out of it, or plugging into social networks is all well and good, but you then must accept the consequences of playing, or not play at all.
You can TAKE CONTROL of what you DO have to deal with, and structure life so that these things can be capably handled and well serviced by you on a regular basis, no sweat. We CANNOT be all things to all people, and yet this is EXACTLY what modern communications demand of us. Determine what your hopes and needs are, right across the board, and then shape your communications capability around them.
Pull out those headphones! Open your EARS! LISTEN to life, nature, the human sounds of your neighbourhood, to the WIND! Stop filling your brain with someone else’s STUFF, and concentrate on creating your own. Oh, yes, Bach is lovely and heavy metal is, too, for those of that persuasion, but neither is as fresh or original or intoxicating as your own thoughts. You can’t HEAR your own thoughts if you’re flooding your cranium with noise.
Don’t be afraid of CHANGING! Change is the eternal force of life, something elemental and challenging. By making decisions to alter the way life has you by the short-and-curlies, by the balls, whatever way you want to put it, you will FREE your spirit and find NEW TIME for all sorts of pursuits. Being chained to technology means you are LOCKED IN. Unchain your time, and find all sorts of new open windows for your mind.