At a time when I have to do much of my work online I often reflect on how much has changed in our world, especially when it comes social interaction.
I’m sure most if not all of you have been in a restaurant or cafe, witnessing how some people may be sitting and eating together yet seemingly hypnotised by their individual hand-held bits of rectangular plastic complete with flashing lights. They are now called mobiles, formerly phones, but really they are clandestine dictators, at least if you allow them to be.
I have sometimes found myself about to reply to a stranger, only to discover they are actually talking to another piece of ostentatious technical hardware firmly and spookily lodged in their ear, resembling a hitherto undiscovered strange growth for which medical science has yet no antidote. Or perhaps it’s a Star Trek epoch device, planted there by the invading Klingons or similar E.T.s, who are planning a take-over of the planet to do some Bitcoin mining.
There’s the guy in the supermarket who frowns because you wish to pay cash at the occasionally manned checkout, and maybe, just maybe, converse briefly with a member of your own species.
And the senior health official in UK recently boasting of how we will soon never need to visit a doctor again. It will all be done at home via computer and AI, with testing kits and the like delivered and then collected by post or drone, sending an ambulance only if you’re desperate and the home diagnosis and treatments failed.
HEALTH
I am not a technophobe. I both recognise and use the benefits that many of our technical advances have delivered to us. But we need caution: we are meant to use them and not be used by them.
They were once called “labour-saving”, suggesting an element of choice still existed if we chose to still do our washing by hand, or add up our household bills for ourselves rather than by calculator.
In many instances they have become essential. Tried booking a flight, or hotel room lately without a “smart” mobile or computer? Even my local pub suggests I order my meal via their App whilst already seated at a table!
For our health, mental, emotional and physical, this is disastrous. It may leave us all depressed, fatigued and even unwell.
My observing of the human aura over a lifetime makes it absolutely clear that one of the greatest strengtheners for a human being is found in the intimate exchange with others. We need to exchange energy as much as possible with other human beings and the natural world too. This invisible process strengthens us in a way that no medicine (or machine) ever can or will. And whilst it can be and is done to a degree at a distance, it is much more dynamic and effective when we are close physically. In medicine it was once called “the bedside manner”, the old skill whereby a good empathic physician would help a patient feel better simply by their presence and manner, in other words their energy. That is healing.
Regular human contact is vital and irreplaceable for the maintenance of our well-being. This includes associating with all types of people, even some we don’t like and may not want to be with or spend much time with. There is an old karmic pattern with everyone you encounter, and useful inner dialogues to be had.
Of course time spent with loved ones and good friends can be especially nurturing and healing. But if we are to really strengthen our minds and bodies there is no substitute for meeting people, all sorts of them.
So be out there in life. Put down the phone for a while. Turn off the computer. Meet and engage with others.
Yes, there is a balance. You also need rest and quietness, some alone-time to process and integrate your experiences, to reflect and contemplate. You can find such solace especially in walks in nature amongst the trees and flowers and also in your moments of meditation. But also be around others, for many of us in these times are being pushed into a daily life of increasing isolation, and decreasing interpersonal contact.
We didn’t come here to be “socially distanced” from each other, to live in separate boxes.
By all means use the technology. But also let life and its people heal you, teach you and help you to grow.