Dear friends,
As I travelled on a bus into the city the other night I couldn't help but notice how absent everyone else in sight seemed to be.
I was sitting on the back seat of the bus,
Two people to my right,
Two to my left,
And four people occupying the two seats which faced the back seat.
Everyone was in the head bent over posture,
All engrossed in their phones.
The thought accord to me is everyone somewhere else,
Which is the inspiration for this little reflection.
Now I have to confess that I am as addicted to my mobile devices as everyone else.
It's hard not to be.
We live in a world where information is at our fingertips,
Useful information,
Real-time transport information,
Weather forecasts,
The news,
Not to mention emails,
Text messaging,
WhatsApping,
Skyping and a bewildering array of apps,
Not least of which is our own Insight Timer app,
Which means so much to everyone listening to this.
But it was the unbroken array of fellow passengers,
Each absorbed in their personal devices,
Which struck me on that journey.
It was that magical time of day.
You know the time when light is slowly giving way to darkness,
The sky sinking through deepening mystical shades of blue,
The lights of premises coming on,
The comings and goings of people on the busy city streets,
The vibrancy and energy outside,
All unnoticed by the passengers within.
It reminded me of the poem by Max Ehrman,
The inspired writer of Desiderata.
For listeners who may not know of the piece,
I'll read it now.
I would,
If I could,
Bring back into fashion the moon and the stars,
The dawn and the sunset.
I rarely hear anyone speak of them.
One would think these perpetual wonders had passed from sight.
There is peace and rest in the contemplation of these miracles that nature paints on the canvas of the sky.
But we do not want peace and rest.
We are enamoured of noise and motion.
A St Vitus dance has seized us.
Things must change.
The nerves have a limit of endurance.
Tonight I looked at the moon for a while.
There was a faint circle around it.
A friend came by and asked what I was looking at.
I pointed to the moon.
I don't see anything.
The moon,
I said.
He chuckled and went on.
He will report me as growing queer.
The mystery of the night,
And our own mystery.
Who knows what we are?
No science has yet grasped us.
The moon,
Beautiful,
Mystical moon,
Playing nightly to empty seats.
Words of Max Ehrman The moon playing nightly to empty seats.
And yes,
In the case of that bus journey,
The city moving from day to night,
And no one looking out to notice the magic of the change.
It strikes me that all of us,
Yes you and I,
Would be well advised to curb our tendency to lift and open the addictive multi-purpose gadget each time we find ourselves with a few spare moments on our hands.
Have we lost the ability to sit and simply be,
And to enjoy the gift of idleness,
The joy of doing nothing?
Yes,
It is useful,
Even necessary in a way,
To check the time of connecting transport.
And handy even to be able to turn on the heat remotely before heading home on a chilly night.
It's useful to know whether we need to wrap up or to bring an umbrella.
And it's great to be in touch with friends.
Wonderful to be able so easily to exchange messages and to see how our friends are getting on.
But we can get lost in the virtual world,
Even ignoring the people we are with as we communicate with people whom we have never met and are never likely to meet in real life.
This can be seen in restaurants and at dining tables every day.
And we who participate in this escape from the precious here and now are the losers.
I have no idea how best we might fix this.
There is such comfort,
Such security in having with us a device which connects us to the greater world.
We can hardly contemplate leaving the magical gadget at home.
But maybe we should try,
From time to time,
To turn off our devices,
To turn them offline unless and until we really need to use them.
Can we have something on our opening screens to prompt us with a question such as,
Is this escape from the real world necessary just now?
And to remind us to ask ourselves what are we escaping from?
Maybe it cannot be boredom.
How can we be bored if we open our eyes to the magic of the world that surrounds us?
More likely the reason for our addiction is habit.
And if it is habit maybe we should ask ourselves if it is a habit we should try to change.
We have the ability to make any practice a habit.
And with practice and a firm decision we can break an undesirable habit.
I'm sure we would all welcome any ideas that people might like to offer in response to these thoughts.
Namaste.
