I am not even 30 years old, but in this life span millions of people have passed in front of me. Some of them were dance and drinking companions for a night and I never saw them again, others accompanied me for a short journey of my journey, some of them are simply acquaintances and still others are friends. I spent my life in the midst of people, I saw the thousand facets, the particularity of each one and I still believed I had "understood" it. Then by pure chance I know a person, we've never seen each other, never spent time together, I don't know his expressions, we hardly even know the tone of our voices, we write to each other. We talk a lot and I am amazed. I found qualities never seen before, I discovered sincere and disinterested listening and kindness. A whole life in the midst of people and never anyone who was able to really look at me and then a person arrives behind a screen and manages to read my soul, gave me hope, carefree, courage and the desire to fight. This post will surely be read by him too, so I wanted to take the opportunity to thank him with a phrase taken from the text of "The Messenger by Linkin Park" .. When life leaves us blind, love makes us kind, it keeps us kind.
The first thing you do when you awake, everybody come, you’ll turn on the phone in your hand. You’re addicted ok, but we’re not here to judge. The problem isn’t addiction, the problem is what you ingest. In fact: the first thing that my, and yours, brain registers are the news. The first input I give him in the morning, the first food, are: deaths, rape, tragedies, environmental disasters, mafia, corruption etc. Not that it is forbidden, but it takes the bestial physico to withstand this impact with the world. Cravings, panic, oppression, ignition clicking sound on the door and fears of cockroach sound. They sneak into the darkness of the unconscious and settle there, then they come out unexpectedly when I decided not to travel because I can jump in the air, say don’t let your child play in the park they kidnap him or not to eat at food because there is it is some deadly disease that can infect you.It’s just that divergent minds appeal to me. Only those who have a totally independent thought. Not necessarily the revolutionaries, the anarchists (many of them I find as trivial as all the others), I speak of those who think things that no one else would ever think, not even me. But when I hear their thoughts, whether I share them or not, I am fascinated, terribly. Because those are minds that really think. The fact is that, beyond these minds, everything else disappears for me, I can’t convey anything. Yet I try, to try something, and I delude myself to succeed. Then, when I listen to those minds, I return to reality, and I understand what I really need. I would like my social life, practically non-existent at the moment, to be this: the search for divergent minds.Inside his body, he thought, there must be a little saboteur homunculus who did not speak with the voice of conscience, but pulled the strings of old fears, making him say the most inappropriate things and do the most reckless things. He felt like a child in a frantic search for approval: so eager to please and to be told “good” that in the heat he stopped thinking, acted according to the impulse of others and prepared the ground for self-destruction. He was so used to doing the wrong things that even when he did the right things he swerved abruptly, changing floors at the last second, not knowing that he had chosen the path to the ravine instead of the field of flowers.
Why are you online so many hours? Why do you always use your smartphone even with your partner or wife next to you? What’s in your life that you don’t like? Does your life not satisfy you? And has your life improved by being online? Are your kids online all day? Do you ever do something together?New technologies allow us to live experiences in virtual environments which then have repercussions on everyday reality. In online navigation, people experience satisfying relational situations that can lead to a lack of interest in real interactive methods. The virtual, with its real personal and interpersonal effects, replaces the real. The judgment of others is mediated. The network offers the opportunity to move away from a world where appearance and certain standards of desirability linked to the outward appearance have become too important for those who do not feel up to par. Furthermore, while the social contacts of everyday life are characterized by stable participation in the group, here there is a continuous turnover of members who can decide at any moment when to disappear and transit elsewhere. Once again, therefore, an extreme freedom of movement without consequences.
It is in this context that digital detox was born, literally digital detox. It is a kind of food diet, like the one we follow to lose weight or to change our lifestyle. Except that we do not reduce carbohydrates and fats but the use, gradually, of the various electronic devices, from smartphones to computers, through tablets and e-books. Over time it is one of the most effective methods to reduce stress and above all to control addictions to smartphones, apps or social networks. The advantages of digital detox are many, both physical and mental. The reduction in the use of electronic devices allows us to have a greater conception of the real world, a higher attention span and above all a greater ability in interpersonal relationships. From a physical point of view, a less intensive use of screens will make our eyes less tired, avoiding the onset of particular visual pathologies, and will also improve our posture, especially when tied to the shoulders and neck.After having cut out hours without the use of smartphones, which we must slowly try to increase, the second step to take in digital detox is to establish free zones. That is particular contexts where to avoid the use of smartphones or mobile devices as much as possible. For example during outings with your partner or evenings with friends. But also while we play with our children or visit relatives. Succeeding may seem trivial but if we are addicted to notifications, messages and e-mails at first it will not be easy at all. We can use some small tricks to avoid looking at the smartphone screen. For example, we use a digital clock and when we feel the need to pick up the phone we look at the clock screen. Can we use digital detox techniques even at work? The answer is yes. Obviously everything is based on organization. To avoid being disturbed by continuous emails, we can only choose times at regular intervals to check the email inbox, during the rest of the day we silence the service and continue our operations without interruption. In addition, we try to avoid reading emails, answering calls or not disconnecting from electronic devices once working hours are over.
It is terribly difficult to grow up in the age of the internet. Adolescence is a phase of continuous struggle between the id – our most child part, linked to pleasure – and the superego – our most mature part, linked to the rules. Internet, social media, video games are intentionally developed with the aim of satisfying, feeding our most childlike part, as with a colored candy that acts as a bait when our Superego tells us to study, to work, to put in order the room. The easy pleasure, the one promised by our mobile phones: a pleasure made up of shorter and shorter waits, almost nil, before reaching what we feel to be a goal; goals that are easier and therefore more attractive than those of the real world, which require commitment and perseverance – these are attributes that we do not want to invest. If growing up means becoming capable of commitment, constancy – in our sentimental, social and working life – then how can we grow if we are accustomed to fast and free pleasures?Why is love so hard? Why if two people love each other aren’t they together? Why do we say big words and then prove nothing? We are all so afraid, afraid of the consequences, of what will happen next, when we should just think less, say all that goes through our heads. If it was your last five minutes now, what would you do? Where would you go? And above all, who would you go to? Simple…. You would go to the person you love, to his house to tell him everything you feel for him, to confess all your secrets, all the unspoken things, but these things we should always do, even if it is difficult. Love consumes you, wears you out inside, destroys you but at the same time makes you alive, gives you strength and all the most beautiful emotions in the world. We should simply once and for all strip ourselves of fear and open our hearts to the person we love. Let’s do it once and for all.One day, a person I cared about froze me with three words: “you are too busy for me”. As a good empath I put myself in her shoes, wondering what was wrong with me. I asked myself a thousand other questions. And then I came to the answer. Everything that is important and profound is challenging, and most people now prefer the surface, the one that does not require effort. We are in the era of “I love you” said every month to a different person, of lightning relationships, of superficial dialogues. Yet one day I realized that there is nothing wrong with wanting and being everything. And I want someone who is everything. Because I don’t mind what is called “challenging”: I can swim in the depths, it is on the surface that I drown. “
Dear Santa Claus,
I know I'm pretty early to ask you for a gift already, but if I start now maybe you can organize yourself better.
What I want this year for Christmas are not the usual things: an end to war, hunger and poverty. Those are ailments treatable by man, with a little good will.
No, what I am asking of you is much simpler: make every landline or mobile phone, computer and television suddenly stop working on Christmas day.
I'm not talking about the mobile phones of people who are far away and need to hear each other because they can't see each other, touch each other.
I am talking about those who are close and have stopped looking at each other to stay attached to an electronic device, without feelings. I'm talking about those people who do not look at the sky because they no longer leave their room, too busy with the keys
of a PC or the engaging sound of TV.
I'm talking about those who when they are together with friends, girlfriend, husband, relatives, children cannot detach themselves from that damned phone and lose the best moments of life: those that last a second and then pass.
Because life is an eternal Present and whoever wastes it on a small or large screen loses the infinitesimal joys, the little lights that make a soul brighter: a laugh from the heart, a look in love, the sunset that falls on the water. or among the burnished leaves of a tree in autumn, a caress, a kiss, the breath of the wind, the voice of silence.
It can happen to everyone to read a message on the mobile phone, when you are with someone else, but dear Santa Claus there are people who do not detach from that mobile phone for a second: you can forget your car keys, house keys, your wallet, the scarf, the umbrella. Head too! But the cell phone, no. That is never forgotten.
It is like an additional limb that keeps us connected with the world and on the world.
Except where we are at that moment. And with the people we are with.
See dear Santa, how much can electronics do? This is why I ask you to make sure that this year, at Christmas, people find themselves in front of a cell phone, a PC, a TV completely dead.
Maybe so they will begin to look up at the people next to them and notice how many beautiful little things had escaped from their eyes because "they never noticed", because they hadn't paid attention.
Maybe this way people will leave the house and start chatting with each other, rather than with a cold screen.
If you do this dear Santa Claus, maybe this year we will live one less day of electronics and one more day of Light.
Thank you.
THE PRODIGY OF IDEAS 