Unplugging The Plugged

I’m at the gym. Just across me on a facing treadmill is a young guy around 5’8”, thinning hair, large nose and absolutely focused on his gadget. His gadget is an iPhone where he is playing a movie of some kind. His earphones are not quite long enough which makes the guy run with his lower chest touching the frame of the treadmill. If he pulls back the iPhone will fall. He barely notices he barely blinks. His eyes are fixed, staring directly into the three and a half inch screen with a hypnotic stare that appears to be unmovable. After 30 minutes running non stop he appears to snap out of his fixation, switch off the treadmill, change channels on his TV screen, switch on another channel and then walk out of the gym staring fixed, glazed into the tiny screen of his iPhone. Some words instantly came to mind. Hypnosis Addiction Disconnect Unaware This is not uncommon of course. I just wondered as I thought about the way we are so addicted to our gadgets these days. I then thought about the young girl just a week or so ago in England that walked home in the daylight listening to her iPod whilst texting at the same time. It cost her life. She walked across a rail track and was killed instantly buy the train. Just the other day I called one of my boys who happened to be in the other room next to where I was sitting. I went in to let him know some food was on the table waiting for him. He was looking at the laptop, listening to his iPod whilst staring at the TV whilst gaming. I spoke to him in my fatherly way he heard nothing. I stood in front of him; I don’t think he saw me. I nudged him and he hardly flinched. So I went back into the room I was in, picked up my own mobile phone, and then sent him a text to let him know food was ready. He replies instantly that he was coming. Towns are full of the plugged in. Buses are packed with the plugged in. Streets are walked by the plugged; it looks and feels as if almost everyone is plugged in to something, somewhere, somehow. HYPNOTISED but by whom? This got me asking the question; if we are plugged in does that mean we are plugged out? Plugged out from what? Just look and think about the human being. Its clear each and everyone one of us are sensory packed. If you went for a walk right now and heard a bird singing in the trees do you ever wonder how you can locate the bird, the tree, and the direction of the sound in seconds? Our senses are connected at a level we almost only just understand. The feel of the wind awakens our senses, the touch of another creates a chemical reaction within us, and the touch or lips against our lips creates a rush of hormones so fast we are unable to stop them. And we get most of our senses hit at the same time. Is it because they are hit at the same time they stay in balance? As you walk out you see, you hear, you think, you digest. Your face reacts, you smile, you frown, your head twists, your body turns and decisions of what you are sensing are made for you without you even realizing it. Then there are your other senses from your body, then cellular senses, the invisible senses, the feeling of knowing things without knowing. Like the point you can feel someone if near by yet you cant see them. How does that happen? Like the ability to know what is about to take place yet not knowing how you know what is about to take place. Or even the ability to feel something is about to happen. How do we know those things? How do we experience those things? How do we stay plugged into those things? Our conscious person is aware for the need to be plugged in. The problem is today we are being guided, being pushed, being directed to plug into what others are telling us to be plugged into. So we have a feel, a need to be plugged in and be aware but we have replaced the natural inclinations with the unnatural inclinations. Just look how incredible the branding, the marketing, and the spread of certain gadgets like the new iPad2. They are seen as the ultimate in cool (of course they are) yet the more we plug in to this stuff; the less we see and feel our environment and what’s around us. Who and why are we hypnotized this way? Who really is in control, is it us or those that feed us this endless source of mind and body altering gadgets? Don’t under estimate what being part of that environment actually does for us. We are stimulated in ways that we can hardly understand. Being in a natural environment slows us right down. It removes forced demands from us and gives us a sense of aliveness that is hard to get from forced feeding of the human being. Our sense are provoked and called into action. This alone makes us a stronger human being. Think about this. If we watch the news each day it would be easy to believe that certain things are bad or bad things are coming to us all. Just a few years ago in the UK we’re almost all convinced that if we had ever eaten a burger at some point in the future we would get a brain disease that will drive us insane. People would talk about it, ask about it and think are they next? Of course they weren’t yet the feeling at the time for a long period was so high that most of us had that worry at the back of our minds. Its not called news feed for nothing… it feeds us what it thinks we should eat. Once we eat, it becomes part of us. Yet imagine if you went to someone living a more remote, more unplugged lifestyle and asked them what they thought about this story of madness and burgers and how it was affecting mankind or about to affect them? They would have no or almost no opinion because they are simply not plugged into the mainstream feeds of information. Once plugged into those feeds our body, our being almost accepts what is thrown our way as the real thing, the truth, and the reality. Yet it is usually never further from the truth or even reality. Is it time you unplugged for a while and re-gathered yourself and your nature? Zoomanity is tightly controlled, the Zooman is fed only what is profitable or controlling? Do you go to the gym and stay plugged in whilst you could be more aware of your health, more aware of your environment? Could you unplug whilst running outside or walking in nature, hearing the birdsong, feeling the winds, catching soft or loud noises and using your eyes to pick up a billion calculations as you walk? Can you go on a date for the first time and leave your mobile phone off or even at home or even not check it once whilst being on the date? How about you try something? Take one day of the week every week to start with and unplug from everything. No phone. No iPod. No TV, no anything that feeds a stream into your mind and ultimately your consciousness. Is today the day you start your return to a fuller humanity? Is today the day you begin your own escape from Zoomanity? I’d love your comment. The Book Escape from Zoomanity is now available from all good bookstores.