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| Life Before the Smart Phone. |
The ancient philosopher Heracleitus said: "We live their death, and we die their life."
He was talking about our souls.
Philolaus said: "The soul is united with the body as if for the sake of punishment."
These ancient philosophers believed life was not something we asked for and fought like hell to avoid.
Most Near Death survivors who have passed over to the other side, often tell of how they didn't want to return to this life, that the bright light, loving greeters, etc.., was a better place and they now can't wait to get back there.
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| "I discovered the Americas without a Smart Phone, no I really did. " |
The list goes on:
“I think our lives are surely but the dreams
Of spirits, dwelling in the distant spheres,
Who as we die, do one by one awake.”
―
Poppies and Mandragora
“Life is fundamentally a mental state. We live in a dream world that we
create. Whose life is truer, the rational man of action pursuing
practical goals of personal happiness and wealth or the philosophic man
who lives in a world of theoretical and metaphysical ideas? We ascribe
the value quotient to our lives by making decisions that we score as
either valid or invalid based upon our personal ethics and how we think
and behave.”
―
Dead Toad Scrolls
“...it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed
like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd
thing existence was.”
―
Transcription
“Learn this, as we pass through the portico:
Fear nothing; there is nothing you can know!
And by these terraces and steps that gleam
Wintry, although the summer night is hot,
This—what we seek is never what we find!
Life is a dream, like love; and from the dream
If we may wake, we never find it what
We would; for the wisdom of a mightier mind
Leads us in its own ways
To a perfected praise.”
―
Household Gods
And finally, Plato's allegory of the cave described life as a matrix where we are all trapped in a cave with images of reality before us, the trick is to turn around, breakaway, and run out of the cave to see what is really happening. Some believe drugs can break us free (EsotericDaily.com warning: You only need to 'trip' once, and with a Shaman, not the weed-dealer down the street), others think religion can break us away from the cave, and still more, Football, but I personally doubt it. The problem is, when we return to the others after leaving the cave, they have us committed for psychological review, they don't believe us for they are still chained to the wall being fed a false reality.
What to do? What to do?
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| "I evolved into Man without a Smart Phone, no, I really did!" |
Me thinks, a hot bath with soft music from a radio in the other room is a start. Far away from our electronic devices. For, these electronic devices are the tools Plato warned us about, they keep us strapped to a phony reality, and to escape the cave is to go a day without any of our electronic devices.
When I was a six-year old kid in school back in 1967, I remember a teacher telling our class how lucky we were "for with all the new electronic devices being created," we would have more leisure time than anyone in history. Today, I realize that lie of "more leisure time" she promised,never happened, and in reality, we have less time today than we ever have. You see, with each new electric device, be it a hand-held calculator, remote-control television, electronic doorbell, automatic answering machine, microwave oven, VHS home movies, home computer, faster home computer, faster, more portable home computer, a laptop, a cell phone, a cell phone computer, a cellphone computer in your ear....
What the f*&k!
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| Before Smart Phone |
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| After Smart Phone |
We have more devices now than ever, and yet, less time.
What's the answer, I don't know, but me thinks, we need to revisit Henry David Thoreau's Walden.
When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. (Walden, 3)
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. (Walden, 323- 324)
~~ Eso Terry
