Banging the Drum

Why are we so obsessed with technology in the west? In fact, why are we so obsessed with a science as this all encompassing basis for explaining our existence away. It's never made sense to me and I sit in the midst of a storm feeling that any day now it will all dissolve away and  some incomprehensible act will cause the curtain to be pulled back and force us to return to our true nature - our true way of being.

I'm thinking of starting a men's group where I live. Mostly, because I want to meet people who reject this idea that life is all about sliding your finger over a touchscreen, making childish cooing noises as we marvel at how clever an unethical, faceless corporation is at subduing us and turning us all into product prophets. I want to find men who are open to finding the answers within and not without. No beer, football, moaning about "the missus". Just open to change and meaning. Whatever that may be. It's not for me or anyone else to prescribe meaning. But if we can all talk openly then maybe we might discover something.

I speak also as someone who has been seduced by technology and lost in a world where flashing lights can determine the rhythm of your being. The beat of your existence. The only problem, of course, with this is that the rhythm of technology is out of sync with how your body moves through its own cycles. Technology is speed driven and being lost in this rhythm can cause a malaise within. I have experienced serious addiction to multiplayer online games and I remember when I used to log off from a heavy session and attempt to fall asleep in what would inevitably be the early hours of the morning, I would feel as if my body belonged to someone else and it would take me a long while to reconnect to myself and fall into a much needed, natural sleep pattern.

There are alternatives to unnatural rhythms and ways of being. You can turn off your phone or computer and sit still, listening to the sound of your breathing. Or ou can also try walking around your neighbourhood - listening for natural ambient sounds.

Chasing technology, upgrading your phone to the latest model, filling your living room with the biggest 3D LED screen imaginable. This is illusion. And we have become so wrapped up in this illusion in the west that we cannot hear the beat of our own wild nature. Our true animal nature.

We are a wild species; we thrive in community, nature, music , laughter, emotion. The list is endless. We need to bang the drum and wake ourselves up from this slumber we seem to have slipped into. Before it's too late and the sound grows so distant that it fades into memory.