Mindfulness in a Frantic World

... and gorillas playing tag

The other day, I was picking up my daughter from school. As I walked up to greet her near the staircase, a young student ran toward me. His hands were outstretched, and his head was tipped skyward as though he wanted the heavens to hear his cries. On his face was raw, uninhibited passion. He belted out, “I need to get home and watch YouTuuuuuuube!” A whoosh of air blew my hair back as he sprinted by.

I thought to myself, “YouTube? Homeboy, you need a half-hour meditation filled with deep breathing.”

Then again, who was I to judge? At that age, I was also hurrying to get home after school. Of course, back in my youth, our technology amounted to Nintendo. Nowadays, kids have unlimited streaming apps and virtual reality headsets!

If you’re not the parent of a young child, you might not know the latest craze. It’s a virtual reality game called Gorilla Tag. Each player takes on the form of a monkey, and they chase each other around a virtual world using their arms as a form of knuckle-dragging locomotion. If you’re nine years old right now, your entire existence centers around this game.

Standing in close proximity to a player in this VR world means risking your own life. Yesterday, I sat on the couch watching my daughter play this game. On multiple occasions, she came within inches of whacking the hand controller into my face. “Watch it,” I hollered in fear. “Watch it! You’re getting too close. I’m right here.”

“Oh, sorry Dad,” she said while adjusting her goggles to briefly view “the real world” and get a lay of the land.

Why do games like this exist? I suppose it’s an escape. A break from reality. A reprieve from life as we know it. We’re all guilty of this. It’s just that escaping reality comes in various forms. Some forms of escapism can be healthy – like reading a fantasy book or watching an action movie and losing yourself in the story. Other forms of escaping reality are not healthy – like doing LSD and licking the window while riding a New York City subway.

I suppose video games are a gray area. They can be healthy because they require a player to solve problems while managing hand-eye coordination… which is good for the body and brain. Like anything else, if taken to the extreme, it can become addicting. Or, worse yet, it can cause a person to lose touch with reality if they view the virtual world as more exciting than real life. (If you haven’t seen the movie Ready Player One, watch it, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.) It’s a superb movie with a beautiful moral at the end of the story.

In a world of fast-moving, mega-streaming, digital downloading, and quantum computing, we must find a way to ground ourselves. I’m seeing alarming (and I do mean shocking) examples of humans slowly losing their humanness in favor of viral social media trends and technological advancements. I’m not anti-technology. I’m just pro-humans-remaining-human.

Is this even possible? Time will tell. As I write this, people are getting eye implants that link their brains to the internet, allowing them to surf the web with nothing more than their thoughts (no, I’m not joking). As I write this, 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute of every single day. That’s 30,000 hours of content per hour and 720,000 hours of content per day. Every day. 365 days a year.

To boot, there are now YouTube Shorts. No, not cargo shorts for carrying your extra tubes (although that might be convenient if you were a plumber.) YouTube Shorts are videos that are sixty seconds or less in length. Once it ends, it just boomerangs back and plays on a loop. They’re nothing if not efficient in delivering content. Due to limited time, presenters in these videos talk louder and faster to get the point across. It creates a sense of urgency that can be felt by the viewer.

I watched one with my daughter. This kid was talking about making slime, and you would have thought he was giving instructions on dismantling a bomb. This NOW NOW NOW style of content delivery has a way of elevating the blood pressure. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t alter a person’s attention span, too.

Recently, I was at the grocery store. A nearby lady was listening to a podcast on her phone, loud enough for others to hear. She had the audio playing at 1.5 times the normal speed. Or maybe it was twice as fast. The podcast host didn’t sound exactly like a chipmunk… but pretty close, if you catch my drift.

Fast. Efficient. More. More. More. More knowledge. More entertainment. More media. More data. More algorithms. I get it. This is the world we now live in. And I’m not knocking your lifestyle if you watch YouTube Shorts about Gorilla Tag while listening to a sped-up podcast as you add items to your Amazon cart. We are masters of multitasking. If technology has done anything to us, it’s shown us that we can juggle more balls than we ever thought possible.

What’s the risk/reward here? On the plus side, the world is a smaller place now. The internet has put a magnifying glass on people’s words and actions, often (but sadly not always) holding them accountable for their heinous acts. There are online support groups for those who need help. Shopping online is a breeze. We can track where our kids are and communicate with them anytime from anywhere on the globe. Yahtzee! We’re living in the future.

The downside of all this tech? Scammers, hackers, stolen identity, internet trolls, and cookies. Cookies! You know, those invisible nanobots that track your online patterns so companies can fine-tune your digital profile and sell you more shit you don’t really need but really, really want. Cookies! What a funny name for a digital whatchamacallit that lacks chocolate chips or deliciousness of any kind. False advertisement at its finest.

Technology has altered our lives in countless ways that we can visibly see each day. But what about the unseen way in which it has changed us? What about our attention spans? They are shrinking at an alarming rate. What about our anxiety levels? All across the board, it’s on the rise. And depression rates? They’re at an all-time high. And there are scary correlations between screen time and the likelihood of depression. Sure, this is ironic to point out, given that you’re reading this while staring at the screen of your phone or computer. Again, I’m not anti-technology. I’m pro-human-well-being.

What’s the solution to this issue? There’s no simple answer. If there was, a neuroscientist would have figured it out by now. I feel the real answer lies in living with purpose. Existing with intent. And perhaps most of all… finding balance.

If you want to watch a video of a surfing dog, a dancing baby, or a man who can belch the National Anthem after eating the world’s hottest pepper, then do it! And enjoy every single second of that video. But watch the video because you have sought it out, and not because it’s simply the next thing that pops up on your video feed. Is it escapism? Sure it is. In moderation, it can help a person relax. In extreme doses, it has a way of sucking our souls into a digital omniverse that blurs the lines of reality.

Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. I hear this repeatedly in today’s world, where “going viral” is the main objective of social media influencers. This overstimulation is not sustainable in the long run. So here, I’m proposing we flip the script. I suggest you like and subscribe to your mental health.

Doing so requires you to seek out activities that are natural, earthy, and organic. We all need a counterweight that is grounding and relaxing. Hug a tree (literally.) Take your socks off and dig your feet into the Earth. Jump in a lake. Take a walk and listen to the wind. Weed your garden. Watch the sunset. Stare at a candle flame and think happy thoughts. Write a gratitude list. Go have coffee with a friend and catch up. Just be sure to keep your phones tucked away so you’re truly in the moment with each other.

I don’t mean to sound preachy. I’m no self-help guru, and I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers. I just have a habit of making observations because I care an awful lot about this crazy world and the people who call it home. So, I just thought I’d dump some thoughts onto the keyboard here. Soon, I’ll post another article that’s a sneak peek into my next book. It’s a short chapter called Zoned Out. It touches on what we just covered, but the story takes place in a school parking lot and is humorous in nature.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go purchase a football helmet. There are no football players in my family. I just want to be prepared for the next time my daughter plays Gorilla Tag in the living room. I can’t imagine getting much writing done if I got conked on the noggin with a VR controller.

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