Day 59
connected
Do we understand the difference between friend, follower, audience and market? In my opinion there is not much of a distinction anymore. What about between friend, leader, influencer, marketer?
More and more, I think all of these words are just other words for Consumer. We simply consume the tech, the media, the materials, the promises, the emotions, the images, the messages…and we judge, sort, compartmentalize and regurgitate all this data like a sloppy early-tech-era computer. But we are not just Consumers, and we are certainly not designed just to process data for the sake of deciding what to consume. We have always been processors of data, but the data used to include information from our physical world, from the plants and animals we cultivate, eat and admire, to the people we interact with in the real world.
This is why I am so convinced that we need to find ways to inhabit space that does not include “connection” through tech. We can not let connection be a word that only defines our internet-augmented experiences. We have to include nature-augmented experiences and know what being connected there feels like. We have to seek out and invest in real-life-friends who we embrace with our bodies. We might even consider listening to our own bodies, hearts and minds, learning to become followers of our own intuitions.
Its not so much that we need to “disconnect” as it is that we need to connect to more and through more than just our screens.
Once, after drinking a tea made from psilocybin mushrooms, I walked naked ten feet through a foot of snow to press my body against an aspen tree. I still remember the feel of the bark against my belly. In my drugged state I was drawn to that tree like an eight-year old to a pop song, or an adolescent girl to promises of make-up manufacturers. I had to touch that tree, feel it with my whole being. It was a need to connect with my world, augmented and encouraged by shrooms. Of course, I laugh at that experience now; but I also know that it was a moment of connection that impacted me more than anything I have ever seen or experienced using technology.
