Importance of Discipline of the Mind and Body - Essay Example

Distracted Thesis and Research of Distracted . Shaking hands with the newly wed couple while speaking out condolence messages on the mobile! Attending a funeral while typing short messages for a birthday bash the same evening! Spending time in the park with your child while working on the laptop in your lap! Patting your back every evening for having met all professional commitments with high quality work while your aged mother waits for an evening walk with you!. Watching your children on webcam while they fend for their own college education and daily chores away from home! These are just a few privileges the modern technology has provided the urbanized western man. But the beliefs of freedom, his trust in advantages of electronic communication, fast mobility are but illusions of the modern civilization. Distracted. Yes we all are distracted, we face an erosion of attention and there is a Dark Age looming ahead of all of us. Maggie is absolutely correct in her observations in Distracted that the modern man is engrossed in everything else but the true essence of life for which he was born. (Jackson 2008). “Virtual love affairs and online games? Simultaneous books and instantaneous travel? Cubist painters, simultaneous poets, and telegraph operators were undoubtedly the front line of industrial society’s plunge into a culture of simultaneity and split screen attention. They were the first one to confront questions that we now wrestle daily. How do we navigate seen and unseen? Worlds at once and handle relationships that unfold via new codes of disembodiment and mystery? (Jackson 34). Tracing the roots of our attention deficit, the striking point of mobility, Distracted Pursuing the narrowing path, multitasking, on the edge of chaos and the battle for our attention are some significant aspects found in my personal life. Part I, Lengthening shadows, exploring our landscape of distraction, chapter 1, tracing the roots of our attention deficit culture gongs a bell into my ears that modern technology is a mere notion of living with the power to reach out to people when we are physically far away from them (Jackson 29) We are trying to live in a virtual world when we have the ability to live in harmony with the real one. It is costing us dearly to be wired to our mobiles, internets, ipods, television sets and high tech gadgets that have made us their slave while we glorify them to be our best assets. Humans are born with the basic sense of touch, smell, sight and taste. These are getting redundant as virtual reality does not offer them as yet. A caring hand, a tender voice, the fragrance of a rose and the taste of home made food made lovingly by a close one will never be a substitute for the best from the cyber world. Our connections to the electronic mediums of modern life are degenerating our biology. The basic human virtues are at stake and we are not in power but in constant failure of our natural systems by trying to use technology against nature. We live in a utopia that we have achieved progress. Perfectly summed up by “a state of mind is utopian when it is incongruous with the state of reality within which it occurs (More 173). The striking point of mobility. Part 2, Deepening Twilight, pursuing the narrowing path, chapter 6 judgment, edge of chaos, coincide with the type of life I am leading (Jackson 153) Multitasking. I work for several companies during the day, shunting between offices and also accomplishing domestic chores in the way. I am competent to complete my deadlines and deliver high quality work while I am still Distracted pursuing my studies for a better future. Since the Electronic revolution has made this world one global village, I now have appointments, video conferences throughout the night so as to cater to people from the eastern and western hemisphere. Man has not yet been able to defy geographical directions and the dimensions of time by virtual science, so, ironically, we still have sun rise and a sun set every day. But the definition of work, organized time to allocate to family, home, dining, wining, leisure and pleasure has become an irreversible entangled mess for human minds and bodies. While I marvel at my resourcefulness, I cannot deny the lament of gulping down sandwiches just to fill up my stomach which has stopped telling me it is empty. My fingers work faster on my laptop but I fail to feel the moonlight night and the pleasant breeze that I can enjoy. I am denying the very faculty I was born with. My dog sets a perfect juxtaposition to my world while he dozes off on the expensive double cushioned bed I bought online with my credit card, recently. Plato had ideally divided the 24 hours of a day into 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night.6 hours for work and 3 hours before dinner with family and 3 hours with friends and close ones at home after dinner. Work, eat, and sleep. Were the fundamental principles of life (More 1901). I get bonuses for working odd hours while my mother strives to snatch an evening walk with me only because she loves me so much. She wanes with worry over her teenaged son who is busy today carving out a niche for himself for tomorrow. Are we not on the edge of chaos? Pursuing the narrowing path of our today? Only to be living with burdens of guilt and result oriented stress that we ourselves have brought upon each of us? (Jackson 153). Distracted In the theory of psycho analysis we have no hesitation in assuming that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle. We believe that is to say, that the course of those events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasureable tension and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with lowering of that tension – that is, with an avoidance of unpleasure of productive of pleasure (Norton 1). We therefore conveniently interpret our negative emotions into materialistic gains through science and technology in the modern world. We rejoice “for the first time in history, community, identity, stability,” (Huxley 7).Our moral philosophy moulds as per our comfort levels and our intellect is governed by the electronic mass media. We forget that we have distracted ourselves from the very basic origin of those sources. We believe in a sophisticated world of wires- network while we satiate with base needs of physical pleasures and carnal desires. “Just as shocking glimpse of a Victorian ankle has melted into today’s blasé public exhibition of thigh, belly, and décolletage” (Jackson 34). The quality of our brains has deteriorated to a nadir of evolution. In the Republic by Plato, Sophocles remarks “old age, sense of calm and freedom, fortune, acquired or inherited, are greatest blessings reaped from wealth”. But how many of us will claim the legacy of peace and happiness, is the narrowing path of realization brought about by Jackson’s Distracted. Our focus on long term ultimate well being is lost. A British team uses a train ride as a metaphor to describe the transition from waking to sleeping in a luxurious children’s picture book. A night train functions as the storys metaphor for sleep. The child and his mother are shown boarding a train Distracted alongside a whimsical array of people and animals. Its destination is tomorrow and for William it cant arrive fast enough. This energetic youngster disturbs the slumber of the tired conductor and a variety of other passengers with his kinetic energy, finally Williams mother convinces him that shutting his eyes is the best way to hasten tomorrows arrival”(William2001). Are we all not doing the same? Dark times or renaissance of attention is possible with conscientious effort but only by those who have realized where they are heading. “Once you start running, it’s hard to slow yourself down” (Albom). “As you understand your true nature and your true purpose, your life will be permanently transformed and then you ca begin to transform the world” (Dr.Weiss 5). “Harmony between science and intuition” (Dr.Weiss 5). Is the perfect answer to the attention deficit individuals and society we have become? Meditation, spirituality, creative pursuits, discipline of the mind and body, slower pace of life, respect to nature instead of trying to consume the idea of overpowering it and finally, striking a balance between our daily activities is the solution to Jackson’s posits of distracted. Retrospection of our aims, goals and priorities in life inspires awakening. Introspection inspires awareness. Discipline of the mind and body prevents distractions. Focus on the present enhances quality of time. Relationships, morality, ethics, positive emotions are preventive measures of erosion, inability to maintain focus on long term aspects of a good life. Connecting to your inner self does not need high wired technology. It costs nothing but pays infinite dividends to individuals and society as a whole to stall the coming Dark Age that Jackson warns us against. Gift of attention, is indeed a renaissance at hand (Jackson 237). Distracted Works Cited Albom, M. Tuesdays with Morrie .N Y: Times Warner. Dr. Weiss, B. Messages from the Masters. USA: Warner Books Inc. 2000. Freud, S. and Louis Menand.Beyond the Pleasure Principle. NY 10110: WW Norton and Company, 2005. Huxley, A. Brave New World. N Y 10022: Harper and Brothers. 1946. Jackson, M and Bill Mc Kibben. Distracted: Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.N Y 14228-2119: Prometheus Books. 2008 More, T. Utopia by Sir Thomas More- More’s Utopia 1516. 9 April 2009. Plato. The Republic 9 April 2009 William. William and the Night Train: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) 2001 9 April 2009 < http://www.amazon.com/Distracted-Erosion-Attention-Coming-Dark/dp/1591026237#> Read More