Can the technology, if you can!
"As long as the general
population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the
vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will
be left to contemplate the outcome." — Noam Chomsky
As part of a recent family getaway,
I was ordered “offline” while out of the country!
No smart-phones allowed at our son’s
“destination” wedding, I was told - meaning no e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, or
Linked In. No Instagram or Instagrunt! Access to lots of pints, for sure, but
not to Pinterest!
Books were permitted, thankfully, enabling me to encounter
the ever-perceptive Chomsky’s insight as noted above.
Sure enough, the sun rose every morning on schedule despite
the fact that North America, the self-anointed center of the universe, was far
away. I didn’t even know there’d been an early May snowstorm in Alberta until I
returned. So sorry to have missed dat!
Among the many reflections that occupied my thinking while on
my social-media sabbatical was how easy it is in what we call “normal life” to
become swamped by the trivial. That led to some meaningful thought on what it
means to live in a culture where so much of our time and energy is consumed by
that which is comparatively and ultimately inconsequential.
One of the things that gets we preacher-types in hot water
very quickly these days, of course, is any attempt to define for the masses
what pursuit or priority qualifies as consequential or inconsequential. So, in
the interests of living another day, let me simply articulate several personal
apps I derived from my ocean-side musings while on social-media holiday.
I will endeavor to live my life with a greater aversion to
the insidious lure of social-media to be encumbered by a virtual placard about
my neck that declares: “Do not disturb! I’m too busy with “my stuff!”
I will better engage the necessity of realizing that
preoccupation with “my stuff” is at the core of much that is ignoble and ugly
in an increasingly narcissistic culture. It is NOT “all about me.”
I will commit to spending more of my mental energy each day
via the perspective of considering how much importance the people of South
Sudan, Syria, Ukraine or the West Bank would attach to my “problem.”
And I will persevere in asking all people – regardless of
race, handicap, sexual orientation, political or religious preference – “hey,
wuzzup!?” and truly mean it, no strings attached.
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