Connected

Sunday night I was just back from a wonderful weekend of laugh therapy with my dearest girlfriends and as I was unpacking I switched on the TV for company.

It was the top of the hour and a narrator's voice was on, mimicking my thoughts about the rapid development of technology and the effect on our brains. Driving home into a bustling city, from the tranquility of the sierra mountains where there is easy cell phone service and a get-away is pretty connected. As I wondered about the ability to escape our technology,  'Connected', a film by Tiffany Schlain engulfed my attention. She calls it an 'autoblogography', with her personal narrative, she questions and uses research to start a conversation on the evolution of technology and the effect it is having on our brains, society and the world.

Along with becoming very attached to Tiffany and her personal story, I loved the verbalization of how our world is changing so rapidly. Tiffany's father wrote a book called "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess", Leonard Schlain had a theory explaining the evolution of the brain with invention and how the invention of the alphabet was a male type of brain to organize and separate. What he theorized was that the female type of brain would react to this to become stronger once visuals become more present, more easily passed around. Well, now we are moving beyond written word and visual stills. Film and video are making a strong upsurge in their ability to be accessible. Now, we no longer have to go to a rental store to watch something we do not own, we can order it with a click. With internet speeding up, home videos are shareable across oceans and can be on display for the whole world to see. Visuals are now an extremely potent form of communication at the same time that women are the most formally educated they ever have been and they are the majority in upper education. Although my description is incredibly oversimplified, I have been wondering these things. When are women going to be ruling countries? The natural process of motherhood, intuition and tools that women have been more apt to for as long as we can remember are now looking necessary to heal the wounds of a world ruled by science, trade and business. But how can we find balance?

In our world we are tipped towards addiction, drugs, alcohol, sugar, food, internet and technology. How do we find inner balance in a world of all these influences? Maybe there is some form of balance but things feel out of balance to me. In my life, I always strive towards balance, part of that including some imbalance, but quickly finding a way back to a moment of equilibrium. Chinese Medicine has taught me tools to get back to equilibrium and has helped me develop these questions.

I still wonder, is it possible to escape my technology? Should I experiment and leave my cell phone at home one day, treating it as a home phone? What would other people think? Would they be frustrated with me or inspired to do the same? Will society yo-yo back to the way it was? No, that's impossible, we are no addicted to our creations. What about mindfulness, will it upsurge in rebellion to all of our mindlessness? Are people happy with this disconnected technological world?

A conversation needs to happen, maybe all the time and everyday. We are accepting these changes faster than our brains and bodies can adapt. In 40 years, there will be research and knowledge that will probably add the side effects of the world we live in now. Whatever surfaces is invisible now, waiting for it's time in the headlines. Until we get to that point in the future, maybe a little balance is good for now. Finding a moment, an hour, a day to unplug and interface with humans instead of a screen. We humans like each other, and it's important to remember that.