Meditation for April 16th, 2016
You Have No Idea How To Be Human Anymore.
For my girlfriend
When our ancestors began gathering, they formed small tight knit villages for safety and to become a family. After gathering and hunting their food, they sat around the fire telling stories to help teach the young ethics and morales while keeping each other entertained. A lot has happened since those days. We have moved in from the wilderness into cities cramped.
Even though millions of people live in the same city together, no one knows each other. People rely on social media and texts to reach out and try to plug into with people.
People communicate with no filter on their social fears because they are hidden behind internet walls. If they want to argue, they’ll slam on those keys to let you know what’s up, but try to approach that person in real life they will just clam up.
If you put your entire life on social media, I have nothing to ask you. Your entire life has already gone through my intelligence mind and my judgement mind, so you are no longer a mystery to me so therefore you are boring.
People will ask other people if they saw what they wrote on social media as if they are unable to tell jokes in real life.
Don’t get me started on people who have emotional blogs about going through hard times with things like, say, cancer.
I know a lot of people who won’t even use the phone feature on their phone. They can only text. They have little to no respect for their peers so they demand that they can only be reached by written short precise messages. They want to live a life void of soul and human warmth.
Some people believe they’ve had deep meaningful conversations by text message. They, in fact, did not. Not hearing the inflection in the voice and body language is like saying your favorite beer is O’Douls.
When someone dies they proclaim their possession of the deceased on Facebook. They express their breakups with vague posts that would make an emo band in the early 2000s embarrassed to sing. If you become angry with someone, you unfollow them at best and unfriend them at worse.
Now we have a generation of people who don’t know how to express themselves, ask for what they need or want or how to have a discussion with someone that disagrees with them. We can sit around a fire after eating, but everyone’s face will be lit up by phone light.
Prayer
Technical Paradise
Wrap me up in your binary blanket.
Protect me from the straight forward communications of others.
The voice of others burn my ear drums –
Except when I’m on the XBOX and I have to let my team know I’m going left after a breech & clear.
If I could text the server my order so I woundn’t have to talk out loud.
I work in customer service and while I say all the nice things out loud,
I’m screaming hateful things silently.
When my phone rings I jump with anxiety.
When my girlfriend wants to have talks about our relationship,
I send a long Facebook message with heart emojis all over.
Keep me from hearing a person’s voice.
I don’t want to hear someone talk about what they’ve been up to when they could have just put that on Facebook.
That’s why I go to movies with my friends.
Amen.
Craft
If someone wants to talk to you, point out that you have some boundaries that you need to be met to have a person to person conversation.
Firstly, you and the other person must sit in chairs facing each other sitting knee to knee.
Secondly, the first time each person speaks, they must introduce themselves with the following formula:
A. First name, middle name, nickname, last name
B. Of what birth city
C. Any title, like Jr. Esq. or Witch
D. Occupation
E. Religion
F. Disease
For example I would say, “Hello, my name is David Everett ‘Woodchuck’ Fisher of Eugene, and I am the first of this name. I am a barista, Internet sensation, spiritual handyman and minister. I am a pagan atheist Kabbalist Jew; alcoholic and cancer survivor. How’re you?”
Before any conversation can begin you and your conversationalist partner must give each other three likes, three dislikes and three reasons to be grateful for each other.
Now a 10 minute meditation where you two just stare into each other’s eyes, climbing into the nether soul deep in the subconcience of your talk companion and see all is connected by a thin spider web. God is a spider.
Now the conversation may begin.
Goal
Get up and talk to someone about something. Express your feelings to one other person and not from the mountain tops of social media. Ask someone face to face for what you need even if you are convinced they’ll say no. Don’t text and only call or talk face to face, knee to knee. Stop being too busy to hang out with people in real life. If you’re in pain, ask a real person for help and not shoot up Facebook with vague posts about pain and darkness.
When someone dies it is time to get people together and remember the deceased. It’s not about you alone, it’s about the community. Don’t be a soul sucking attention getter and think you are so alone and special.
Go outside dammit!