Techno - Isolation

Isolated- adjective meaning occurring alone or once. Yet how it feels at least in this moment is to be separate from. Oddly, I am wondering if when people made a choice in the early 1900 to travel away from all they knew if they felt isolated, separated from the world. No phones, no computers, mail as long as a month away. Was there fear hidden in that isolation, or excitement?

Recently, I have been having trouble with my means of outside communication. I live alone, mostly work one on one. Stop in at a couple of different coffee shops around town, randomly – would they notice my not being around? My internet connection, something with the rotor or wire-less connection, my phone- ah, it is digital and has a battery that has died completely, and not one that seems readily available. So though in fact I can and have made connections with people, there is a certain loss of communication, that leaves me feeling isolated in the heart of the city.

Interestingly enough, I found fear lurking…what I said, “Self -it’s not like I can’t go up the street hang out at my local bar/restaurant”. Yet somehow the inability to write to, talk with, hang with friends via facebook left me feeling isolated. I felt the need to reach out to folks that I couldn’t touch with my hands, my heart ached, I found myself pacing my small apartment. The calls I did make – alas nobody home. It all took me back, to moving around as a small person. We traveled and moved just about every three years while I was growing up – out of my control. Losing track of friends, let’s face it at 7 or 10 you’re not so great at writing letters. How does that saying go….”Out of sight – out of mind.”

Any way the point being that I was fully living a phenomenon of connection or loss there of , that I have been worried about. There is a loss of human contact, when we lose our technological connection, can we and do we find ourselves able to walk down the street and make contact with another human being? Do we know the sounds of the birds that reside in our neighborhood? Are we aware of what our upstairs neighbor feels when we are baking Chocolate cookies and not bringing any up to share; (though in my defense on this one, I will say my local coffee shops, the Bay Lines and others do receive this gifts of baking)? Do we know the names even of our neighbors? ( I will confess here also – I do not). Do we know the names of the folks that might work at some of the shops we frequent – this I can say I do!

Can you unplug for a day or two? How does it feel?

I am at the same time immensely grateful for all the technology that is at our finger tips, the way we can reach friends, that we have lost touch with – how many of us can truly say – no body from my past is my facebook friend, sure I’ve not seen them in 15 years …

Yet, I am concerned for our lack of human contact; translation touch. Our skin being the largest living organ of our body, the part of us that takes in large amounts of information. So, here I am thinking about all this and at the same time how might I get back on with my internet life ~ when OH! I say – I can re-plug my internet connection, the wire-less will have to wait. Funny – my computer known as Mr. Baggins needed to be in physical touch today. And me now that I’ve written this ~ I too need to go out touch the Earth, see really see my friends, hear the sounds of the world around me.

I hope that you too, will gift yourself some time to be in the real world, not just the virtual one.

Have a great day.




sorry that I am unable to give credit to the person who's photo this is - I'm not sure were I got it. Somewhere on the 'web' I am sure.

Touch

Touch…we long for touch. We are the very product of touch. I wish to be able to state that for the most part we become due to the fact that two people choose to lay together touching; there is the thought of the ultimate touch of love and we become. Though in truth that is not always the way of it.

Yet, we do come into being because of touch. We spend the rest of our lives in some form looking for, longing for the touch that was our becoming. Yet, we find ourselves more and more moving away from forms of touch. Human touch. We touch our computer screens to send letters, write articles, text message instead of showing up to sit with a friend. Our contact with each other moving to smaller and smaller amounts, in terms of human touch.

How many of us remember the advertisement – “Reach out an touch someone.”? It was a phone commercial, yet it became a line we used regularly. Or how about ET’s glowing finger as he touched the little boy saying –“ ET phone home?” Yet as he said it he usually touched the finger of a human. ET himself needed physical contact be it human or that of his race; as his heart light showed. We too need contact- physical contact. Why is that we have moved so far away from the very thing we crave?

I wonder what we have all become so afraid of; that we move away from each other. In all most all things. When was the last time you sat down and wrote out a card in ‘long hand’ to a friend, for the sheer joy of sending them a note? No real reason, other then to say HI. Or instead of talking to them on the phone perhaps a walk or cup of coffee for that a talk and hands across the table. Touching a friend with your eyes.

Have we allowed our lives to become so busy? And what is it that we have become busy doing? My Space, Facebook, Twitter? We are putting out in the world fairly ‘personal’ information or are we? Is it easier without making eye contact? I wish to ponder this for myself as well.

For today, I wish and invite each of us to really ‘Reach out and touch someone’. Make contact with the person you get your coffee from today. Or some random person gift them with a Smile; contact. See how far it takes you to feeling more alive, more in touch with your humanness.
Blessings, may the air around you leave it’s soft touch on your face this day.