It's Friday
Ah a busy week
Lets mirror Monday this aloha Friday.
Echoes of what we are:
We are all connected indeed and we often tether ourselves, our memories, to our wonderful new little devices. Of course those devices are usually far more public , traceable, trackable and not as private as would we think.
People tend to think of themselves as their past memories, I often teach to hold a few key memories but let the rest drift naturally away. If this is the case why hold on to every memory and tidbit if such past information is more and more useful against you than for you?
As we augment ourselves... increasingly so... : especially in terms of memory enhancement devices... wouldn't it be more practical to store general information in such devices and leave the private items to our minds...
It's a question of how the devices are used: since "smart" phones are becoming a vast collector bin of every aspect of our nature.
The following thought comes to mind:
So Ponder me this:
Why snapshot an entire personal life away to store into some device?
If we are truly immortal within our lives as Taoism and other schools of thought propose... then there is no need to fear losing memories in the larger sense. It almost seems the real reason to store such vast information away is to ironically share it more easily with others: which is exactly what happens when basing an entire lifestyle on such electronic devices. "Smart" phones are becoming the modern interchange to the collective conscious... a cloud of information that can be consulted and requested to provide much hidden secrets about each user.
So in the end I have no problems with any of these privacy issues, since it's a personal choice of lifestyle and how it is used by a person. The more one relies on networked devices for personal information, the more public and revealed a person by default will become. It's no mistake that some leaders are those who are taking the most proactive role in not using such devices, for this very reason.
The next decade is going to be very interesting to watch as people sort out this "personal" balance.
Namaste
6 comments:
I don't worry too much about anyone 'spying' into my electronic world. I'm just not that interesting. People don't want to know the 'me' that is available without snooping. Why on earth would they spy on me? roflmao
Typing out your memories or flicking back through photos are odd things: Without these tools many events just fade away. With these tools people reinforce unreal versions of the events as if real.
A photo is not the experience. A diary note is not the truth of the matter. Two people in the same experience will write entirely different versions of that event.
Memories are never gone and many things that happen to us do not form a useful stepping stone, sometimes until years later. Like a jigsaw puzzle or sudoku game some bits are not apparent without others occurring.
Electronic memory aids or life organizers are all well and good, useful tools, but for the spiritual path more than likely added inertia to liberation as they don't let things occur in their natural rhythm, they instead reinforce certain recorded moments in unreal levels of relevance.
I never worry about privacy issues on the internet or these tools: since anytime you used anything that is networked: by definition you are sharing information about yourself. It's always public. You have to act accordingly
People dont realize this and then hurt themselves by projecting out more than they realize.
I think the more interesting aspect of this is: how we can with these devices store "memory" outside of ourselves and that changes how people see themselves and act to that "new layer of definition"
Memory is a "story", any facts we store are always subject to interpretation. That will create some very interesting interpersonal conflicts for many people who don't understand the "story" like nature of any memory / and the issue of how people treat digital information as more factual...
It's going to to be interesting to see how people shift in the next decade as it all develops.
What people are doing though is reinforcing a fallacy of linearity. Also giving more credence to certain aspects of life than others. More than likely building up or wincing over acts of the ego.
"Here is a photo of ME doing this aren't I so much fun, wasn't I so hot when I was young oh but look at ME now."
A great master as mentioned by Chuang Tzu has no dreams, sleep is sleep. As for someone truly in touch with the way life is there and then and any technology that encourages you to carry the past with you is just fluff, no use whatsoever.
"fallacy of linearity."
but be careful
linearity is just one of many ways to see the world... neither more nor less correct as a way or style on how to move or see how life flows.
All depends on each person how they decide to embrace their nature.
But if a person only embraces one way, such as "linear", then one's options (Potential) quickly gets reduced down to a single way say "linearly" in how one does move through life and explore their potentials.
all in all it is what one makes it to be...
Linearity is the way all but a very few do see the world. Many will die as an end to a linear existence. Linear has no immortality, linear has beginning and end.
What do memories do but form an idea of a past. What do wishes and wants do but form an idea of a future. Both pulling the persons attention from the very reality they desire to be in touch with - as if they were '100% now' then they would waste no effort on striving or regret and with no desire or no regret they would be perfectly at rest.
Past and future have no reality so neither does linearity, it is a concept based on things of no substance.
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