Note: See yesterday’s post.
And while we’re at it, part of getting personally active is to let go of screens and return to our natural selves, our bodily selves, the the natural world. At least some of time!
Screens drive us “crazy,” in that they offer a constantly cascading overwhelm of so-called “perspectives” that entice us to “beLIEve” one way or another. “I’ve GOT to figure this out!” — we say to ourselves. Got to ground my awareness in something, some certain belief.
Oh? Please! That’s not how to ground. Take your shoes off. Stand barefoot on the good green earth. even better: lie down, roll around, smell the flowers, feel the breeze . . .
We think intellectual certainty will yield emotional and physical security. It does not. Just the search for certainty itself shoots us out of our bodies, so that we no longer feel at home in the natural world.
Plus, when we’re on screens, we’re not moving. Basically, we’re barely in our bodies, and sense them as encumbrances, objects which, when we do need to get somewhere else, we drag along, distracted by our screens which, typically, are still open, on our phones; or at worst, we’re limping along clutching our phones . . .
I see this every single morning on my (phone-less) walks with puppy Shadow. I’d say 9 out of 10 IU students are either on their phones, or carrying them, as they schlep to class. GROSS!
How many times have I posted this justly famous photo?
Speaking of which, here’s a great substack piece that resonates with the above.
Kathleen DeVanney: It’s simple, keep it complicated?