To what degree do you believe it to be true that we are living prepackaged lives, plucked from a shelf on a level lower than our eyes? The tendency of technology is to convolute humanity down to a mechanized way of being where ultimately, in some near or distant future, we begin to appear in a manner similar to that of ants. There is less and less space available for the chaos and flow of the great wilderness to act upon us and the events that reach us. It is being taken up by a momentum which refines itself constantly, in some beautiful and bizarre direction which glorifies itself more than it ever does its alleged makers. Humanity is its vessel, through which ideas advance upon each other by steel and subtle wiring, beckoning us ever more away from the elements of nature.

It is interesting that we find ourselves absorbed into technology with, some of us at least, defending and justifying it with great zeal as the new experience to adopt into our daily lives. There are of course groups of people around the world, small in size and with little influence, who escape from its trappings altogether and attempt to recreate a symbiotic relationship to nature by simply living humble lives. Yet this is the extreme, a kind of lazy either-or frame of mind which chooses to abandon the modern system altogether. People believe they can disconnect from what is happening and move into a reality of their own choosing. They opt-out from the grid and pick a spot on the earth to raise forth their own version of Eden.

There is a saying, ‘to be in this world, but not of this world’. It relates to a need to play along, live as expected, but inwardly separate oneself from the identity society expects of us. Outwardly we may behave as we would without this inner separation, yet there is an inkling of consciousness present which allows one to relax one’s mind, heart and body, realizing all along that they are being pulled by a river that is much greater than he himself can escape. In subtle and clever ways he helps others separate from their supposed roles in life and breathes into his own a substance which provides him with some weight of existence. There may be a day where opposing actions are possible and necessary, but it isn’t now, and there is much more important things to learn first before trying to move against the current.

If we take ourselves seriously then we fall victim to a great number of silly things. If we believe ourselves to be important, we are open to vanity, pride and all of the other sore spots which a self-important ego must by default defend. Technology in our day has heightened the complication of modern life to obscene degrees, where the products and services which define our fictitious importance grow to innumerable quantities. If there is attachment to the role and identity we have been given and we therefore allow ourselves to be lured by its hypnotic scent, then we will always find ourselves to be victims of circumstances. On the other hand, there can be something within us which is not attached or hypnotized so easily by the stories we are told, and then the convolutions of society and technology are no longer as harmful as they once were.