Unplug Your Cluttered Life and Imagine Your Dreams
We seem to have a vast number of very disgruntled people in this country. Granted, there are many very good reasons to be disgruntled: we’ve embarrassed ourselves in a fiasco built on lies in Iraq; we’re talking nonsense, rattling sabers, and convincing Russian we want another cold war over Iran; we daily assure former allies that they are correct in their assessment that we’ve lost our mind; when compared to children in other advanced countries, our kid’s test scores say they are over indulged, under educated, and disinterested brats; the cost of gasoline is as obscene as the retirement package Exxon-Mobil’s Board of Directors authorized for their CEO after their greed and shenanigans brought them the highest profits in history – at the expense of more rational people in our vanishing middle class; the powerful farm lobby, General Motors, and self-interested governmental officials are slyly pushing Ethanol as the best alternate fuel source, ignoring the fact that the energy cost needed to turn corn into fuel is the same as our present use of gasoline and not nearly as good over the long haul as sugar cane would be.
Along with the discontent, we have a vast number of people wrinkling their brows and wondering what happened to turn us into a third rate banana republic when the last time we looked we were the envy and saving grace of other places in the world. Where, they ask, did we go so wrong? How did we get in this basket that is bumping and careening so fast down this dangerous slope?
There is no question but that we are in serious trouble. There is also no question but that our situation didn’t begin overnight, but was building gradually until our apathy and stupidity helped put a group of nasty and incompetent egotists in charge of regulating our existence onto the knife edge of destruction. We may have wandered into this no-man’s land with our eyes open, but we were like somnambulists on steroids, flexing muscles, striking poses, and letting the ‘roids’ atrophy our brains while we masturbated ourselves to the tune of electronic technology and media run amok.
This nation has become a shining example of a loss of imagination.
Imagination is key to the thought process. It is also key to innovation, ingenuity, and creativity. Imagination is extremely important to the growth of children into aware and cognizant adults capable of projecting ideals, solutions, and repercussions to any actions they support or personally take. When imagination fails, complacency sets in, self-reliance disappears, and we exist in a cold, dark nothingness, easily led and manipulated by the lazy, the unscrupulous, and the fanatical.
The first and most imperative step to regaining a sense of ourselves is unplugging our television sets. The next necessary step is erasing our dependence on cell phones, i-pods music, and personal computers. All these items are not only symptoms of addiction, but are also symptomatic of a fear of being alone, self-reliant, and responsible. We must learn to admit that much of the busy-ness of our lives and the lives of our children is only that – a utilization of time better spent in other life affirming pursuits. Electronic substitutes for living camouflage the important aspects of our world – appreciation of real life friends, time to reflect, the quietude to think and analyze what happens around us. By turning off the electronic and self-created static of our lives, we can reacquaint ourselves with imagination and concentrate on our individual dreams rather than on the dreams we adopt through other people with their own agendas.
The electronic media - television - could have been a formidable source of knowledge. Instead, it became a marketing specialist’s wet dream. Commerce and commercialism are Tweedledumb and Tweedledee in the Wonderland of our unhappiness – crafty, bloated, and moronic examples of our current mentality. We have made television our babysitter of choice, allowing the illusions and slight-of-hand serial shows and soap operas to substitute for reality, many of us are addicted to ‘reality’ shows that bear no resemblance to the real world, and extreme shows exploiting and ridiculing the inane fears of adolescence to define heroism and courage. The talking heads of the electronic shell game of news dictate the lowest common denominator of interest as serious news or propaganda and repeat such empty messages ad nauseum twenty-four hours a day every day of each week. Television has become another person in the room, the elephant in the corner, the irresistible décor of the current millennium. It’s no wonder we appear to be dumber that ever before in our history, because when sprawled in front of that gigantic box, we first relinquish our taste, then we turn our brains into sponges to absorb the narcotic and phony companionship of idiocy in full color and surround sound.
We allow far too much noise in our lives. Television, i-pods, and car CD systems blare and scream while a mega bass drums and thumps, rocking even other cars waiting nearby at an intersection. Originally the word dumb meant mute. Now dumb means stupid and goes even more appropriately with the word deaf because the volume of every day noise can make ears bleed. Music, once touted as soothing the savage breast, now exerts only a primitive response, be it separation from the world or a desire to punch out or strangle other denizens in that world. We have so amplified up the sounds of our lives that we’re existing on white noise, nonsense lyrics, false messages and dissonance.
A few years ago, several well regarded musicians recorded albums that were ‘unplugged.’ It was somewhat surprising how many people suddenly recognized what sublime sounds simple instruments like a guitar and a human voice could make. If we would all unplug ourselves from electronic addictions, we might be equally surprised at how well our brains could function, at how interesting a civil conversation could be, how much we learned about our own desires and the accomplishments and dreams of our kids.
Without courage and conscious thought, we will never get out of this maze, this morass, this cage of mistrust and discontent we’ve allowed to dull and control our perceptions. It is imperative that we unplug ourselves from reliance on outside sources for all forms of entertainment and information. It is crucial that we curtail extraneous busy activities and find time to analyze the barriers we’ve erected to avoid seeing what we’ve become.
Turn off that TV. Turn off your cell phone. Lose your i-pod. Listen to the sounds of silence and reacquaint yourself with your own unique imagination. Let your mind run free and leisurely swim in the stream of consciousness that brings everything together. Unplug and discover yourself, your balance, and how much wiser your life decisions can be.
Along with the discontent, we have a vast number of people wrinkling their brows and wondering what happened to turn us into a third rate banana republic when the last time we looked we were the envy and saving grace of other places in the world. Where, they ask, did we go so wrong? How did we get in this basket that is bumping and careening so fast down this dangerous slope?
There is no question but that we are in serious trouble. There is also no question but that our situation didn’t begin overnight, but was building gradually until our apathy and stupidity helped put a group of nasty and incompetent egotists in charge of regulating our existence onto the knife edge of destruction. We may have wandered into this no-man’s land with our eyes open, but we were like somnambulists on steroids, flexing muscles, striking poses, and letting the ‘roids’ atrophy our brains while we masturbated ourselves to the tune of electronic technology and media run amok.
This nation has become a shining example of a loss of imagination.
Imagination is key to the thought process. It is also key to innovation, ingenuity, and creativity. Imagination is extremely important to the growth of children into aware and cognizant adults capable of projecting ideals, solutions, and repercussions to any actions they support or personally take. When imagination fails, complacency sets in, self-reliance disappears, and we exist in a cold, dark nothingness, easily led and manipulated by the lazy, the unscrupulous, and the fanatical.
The first and most imperative step to regaining a sense of ourselves is unplugging our television sets. The next necessary step is erasing our dependence on cell phones, i-pods music, and personal computers. All these items are not only symptoms of addiction, but are also symptomatic of a fear of being alone, self-reliant, and responsible. We must learn to admit that much of the busy-ness of our lives and the lives of our children is only that – a utilization of time better spent in other life affirming pursuits. Electronic substitutes for living camouflage the important aspects of our world – appreciation of real life friends, time to reflect, the quietude to think and analyze what happens around us. By turning off the electronic and self-created static of our lives, we can reacquaint ourselves with imagination and concentrate on our individual dreams rather than on the dreams we adopt through other people with their own agendas.
The electronic media - television - could have been a formidable source of knowledge. Instead, it became a marketing specialist’s wet dream. Commerce and commercialism are Tweedledumb and Tweedledee in the Wonderland of our unhappiness – crafty, bloated, and moronic examples of our current mentality. We have made television our babysitter of choice, allowing the illusions and slight-of-hand serial shows and soap operas to substitute for reality, many of us are addicted to ‘reality’ shows that bear no resemblance to the real world, and extreme shows exploiting and ridiculing the inane fears of adolescence to define heroism and courage. The talking heads of the electronic shell game of news dictate the lowest common denominator of interest as serious news or propaganda and repeat such empty messages ad nauseum twenty-four hours a day every day of each week. Television has become another person in the room, the elephant in the corner, the irresistible décor of the current millennium. It’s no wonder we appear to be dumber that ever before in our history, because when sprawled in front of that gigantic box, we first relinquish our taste, then we turn our brains into sponges to absorb the narcotic and phony companionship of idiocy in full color and surround sound.
We allow far too much noise in our lives. Television, i-pods, and car CD systems blare and scream while a mega bass drums and thumps, rocking even other cars waiting nearby at an intersection. Originally the word dumb meant mute. Now dumb means stupid and goes even more appropriately with the word deaf because the volume of every day noise can make ears bleed. Music, once touted as soothing the savage breast, now exerts only a primitive response, be it separation from the world or a desire to punch out or strangle other denizens in that world. We have so amplified up the sounds of our lives that we’re existing on white noise, nonsense lyrics, false messages and dissonance.
A few years ago, several well regarded musicians recorded albums that were ‘unplugged.’ It was somewhat surprising how many people suddenly recognized what sublime sounds simple instruments like a guitar and a human voice could make. If we would all unplug ourselves from electronic addictions, we might be equally surprised at how well our brains could function, at how interesting a civil conversation could be, how much we learned about our own desires and the accomplishments and dreams of our kids.
Without courage and conscious thought, we will never get out of this maze, this morass, this cage of mistrust and discontent we’ve allowed to dull and control our perceptions. It is imperative that we unplug ourselves from reliance on outside sources for all forms of entertainment and information. It is crucial that we curtail extraneous busy activities and find time to analyze the barriers we’ve erected to avoid seeing what we’ve become.
Turn off that TV. Turn off your cell phone. Lose your i-pod. Listen to the sounds of silence and reacquaint yourself with your own unique imagination. Let your mind run free and leisurely swim in the stream of consciousness that brings everything together. Unplug and discover yourself, your balance, and how much wiser your life decisions can be.
posted by kaz at 9:16 PM
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