Here at the lovely hotel where I find myself today, there is a beautiful artificial waterfall. It was designed to be an inspirational setting for weary road warriors like myself, created to sit beside and meditate. Not a place to generate income but a restful place to close out the noise of commerce.
I am aware of a man who is paying little attention to this beauty. His focus is on a blackberry held at his chest, head down, thumb typing a long entry.
Why is he not enjoying the beauty of this setting? Why is he not in the "now" feeding his artistic soul with the sites all around him? His gaze and his attention are captured by a screen that would be exactly the same were he any where else. Will he remember that the text he wrote this day was the result of inspiration from an environment he fails now to even acknowledge? Will the beauty of the waterfall be recalled at a later "now" to be only a reconstructed memory of the past?
All these things go racing through my mind as I realize that I am that man with the blackberry. There is no one else around. Am I experiencing it or am I just blogging about it. Living it only through the telling?
You would think the answers to my own questions would be much easier to solve.
Have a great weekend and don't forget to look up and see where you are.
As you were,
Jay
www.monkeyjoke.com
I notice this same fascination with electronic toys with my children. We will be riding in the car, and they have their nose buried in their cell phone, or game boy, etc. Never looking out the window to see what they have never seen. As a youngster we would go for a ride to see the scenery, especially in the fall. Todays youth couldn't care less, they would rather be texting. Somehow I think they are missing so much because of their latest toy.
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