Feeling nauseous yet?
Being sucked into the vortex of current events will do that to you. I have been trying to stay out of the black hole of technology, but it seems like it's coming for us whether we welcome it or not. Call it a net or call it a web, but both of those words have connotations that align with captivity.
I have been thinking about life as it was in my high school years. Not that I have any desire at all to return to that chaos. I know that for some people those were the greatest years of their lives, but for me they were years of uncertainty. Walking on the edge of social disaster every day. Trying to navigate the ways that I was expected to behave, between my peers, my family, and the adults at school, left me feeling unbalanced and as if I was constantly disappointing someone. There was nothing simple about the "good old days", for me as a young woman, still, the earth remained firm and people were people, whether they meant well or not. You could trust that when you went on a walk in the woods, or spoke to a friend, or "went on a drive" as my grandparents would say, that it was your own private experience. No one was watching, listening, or tracking you. I didn't even realize how free we were. We had no concept that that was a freedom that we could lose.
I didn't know that reading a book was something that would eventually become one of those oddities that "most people" don't do anymore. Going to the library was my favorite activity, and coming home with an armload of mostly worn books that had been read by countless others, was a weekly pilgrimage. Who knew what worlds I would be going to over the weekend? I probably could have pulled pretty good grades if I hadn't had my nose in a book that was "hidden" in the middle of my math book during class. When, in college I discovered that Literature discussion groups were a thing, I wondered if I could do that for a living. Sadly, no, but my instructor was so happy to have a student who loved to engage! He thought that I should pursue it. I did, sort of.
I loved to imagine. Even as a coming-of-age young woman, I would wander the woods and fields around our property and think up stories. I wanted Narnia to be a real place so much! I had only my border collie and my thoughts, and it was delicious. I didn't need pictures or someone to talk to. I didn't need prompts, or a "template". I didn't have to worry about doing it "right". It was mine. There was no right or wrong. No one was going to read or hear what was happening in my head. It was such a precious time. How did I think that it would never end?
When did I lose that willingness to let my mind wander untethered? When did everything become so formulaic and standardized, even the things that I think about? When did I stop dreaming and allow my thoughts to be co-opted by a world that has lost the sense of the mystical and the immaterial? Somewhere along the way I started to dwell on the "important" things. "Realities".
How to raise a family and run a home, with a single paycheck. Important. What was happening in politics. Important. How to stay ahead of the homeschool schedule and make sure that all the "t"s were crossed and the "i"s dotted. Important. What we needed to do as a family, and what I needed to do personally, to serve the Church. Important.
Yes, these are actually all important, and I took them seriously and did well. But what happened in the doing was that I let more and more of "me" go as I tried to listen to the best and brightest of "them". I loved my life as a wife and mother, but what if I had looked into my own four walls more, instead of looking to see how we were measuring up? What if I had spent more time engaging with the little boys that I was teaching, and less time with the grade book? What if I had used the mental energy that I gave to thinking about "the political situation" to write about what really matters, which is deep, unchanging, and true?
I can't do it any other way than the way I did it. We don't get redos. But I can't help but wonder where I would be as a person, if I had be truer to the person that I was as a child. How would my family have benefitted if I hadn't cared about doing things by "best practices"? I hate that term. Who decides what is "best"? Best for whom? Society? The company? The country?
Now. Now what do we have? Standardized everything. Surveilled everything. Therapized everything. And this it what we call progress. We've gotten all kinds of great gadgets and use cases, but we've lost reality. We are "growing" economically, technologically, and in all things "forward", but what have we lost? And how are we stunted?
What happened to pretending? Little kids going together into deep and elaborate stories that played out over the course of a whole day, with some becoming chapters in the volume of a summer. When I was a kid this was standard play fodder. We became moms, dads, teachers, dogs, racecar drivers, cops and horses. We all knew that it was imaginary, and that is what made it magical. We also knew, somewhere in our hearts, that it would end, because we didn't see older people doing it, except for maybe writers. We learned that it was a golden time from the perspective of people who have outgrown the things of childhood, but it is a treasure that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Do kids still pretend? Is imagination still a place to grow up, or has it been twisted into something that requires a machine prompt? A video game, a Lego set that is pre-determined, lands that are encountered inside a computer brain instead of the backyard? Can kids still make a grand castle out of a woodshed, and delicacies from mud? Do they even want to? Why would they, when most have access to toy versions of all the things that adults are doing. And if you don't use that imagination at the right time (childhood) and in the right environment (freedom for play), will the need to pretend manifest in some way at the wrong time (adulthood) and in environments that are not so healthy?
This experiment is still ongoing. It won't be over until something "happens" to create a shift in the cultural narrative. The ride won't be over until enough people look around and decide that they don't like where we are going. That this direction isn't good for humanity.
I want to help to change the story, and I know that there are people out there who also desire this. We need to find each other. We need to make a way to go forward, without losing the things from the past that are important. Instead of rewiring the human experience, we can make a few changes and live in an environment in which humans can benefit.
Is anyone out there?
