Quietness:The allure of quietness is seemingly always calling me. The sweet desire for the inner freedom from noise in which I can still detect the hum of voiceless contentment . As I treasure this, I look for its echo in the outer world as well. And lately, I have discovered a strange phenomenon. There is a sort of "created stillness," but yet it is not an alive stillness, however contradictory that might sound. Have you looked around recently? There are less voices to be heard, hardly any eyes to be met, no simple exchange of smiles to be found… and when investigated deeper, it gives off an eerie feeling; a robotic nothingness. Most of my fellow men are deeply entrenched in their own made up worlds created by the screens on their telephones. Of course there has always been the fact that one is steeped in one’s own "invisible world"... so to speak. But now the potential of making this a visible virtual reality has been brought to our generation and truly a deep sadness comes with that, although it has also the grand possibilities to greater expansion within our inner views and visions. As I find myself on the streets, in cafes, restaurants, trains, or buses, I try to sense the presence of the other people. Yes, there are bodies, but I feel that their field of immediate aliveness is missing. Looking at their faces and heads being buried in the screen, I notice that the echo is no longer audible for me. Something seems to be hitting a wall and the vibrations slowly seem to fade away, if not simply dying. This is not the quietness that I longed for, this is not the silence that I sometimes crave, this is not the peace I wished for. It is a static state, stagnant, dangerously susceptible to hypnosis.
For the new year to come, I, as a perpetual positive person, wish to think that this fall into the new technology will be felt strongly throughout the world, and with it, hitting the other side of the coin that somehow mysteriously a pull towards a healthy balance might come about. Harmony normally follows that pattern - the manifestations of the opposites fiercely outplayed. The strong contrasts between two outcomes. We first have to feel and notice that we are ill before we can find greater health and wellness. I believe that this unfortunate phase is just that… the beginning of a new invitation to balance out the possibilities that lie before us. As I mentioned before, the potential is huge to widen our visions, to broaden our views of other cultures, to encounter the majesty of Mother Nature and to connect truly with other like minded people to create a web for our positive input into the world. It is endless, but first, after the fall into the "screen madness," there must come the obvious discernment and the innate wish to create a true humanity bonded by an alive compassion for one another. And it all starts with each of us… individually so, collectively so… lets enter the New Year with this beautiful intention and make our world a warm sphere of sweet aliveness. May it be so!
