This post was featured on my Mission Year blog. You can go to here to view it.
How to be where you are.
I honestly don't really know if I have yet to have mastered the art of being where I am. I am physically present in the southwest part of Philadelphia, located in neighborhood of rowhomes on a street named Reedland in a house with five other men and women that I had just met several weeks ago. I'm not sure if I know if I have mastered the art of being where I am, because I find myself occasionally wanting to be somewhere else.
But, as I have been here in Philadelphia, I have been observing a technology fast, which will be going on for about 2 more weeks. With my technology fast, we are committing to abstain from the use of technology (for the exception of work and our Sabbath days) as a spiritual discipline that'll encourage us to reflect on how technology affects the relationship we have with ourselves, with G-d, and one another. And one thing that I have personally discovered for myself is how, having less access to technology, I find myself desiring to be somewhere else a lot less.
Without Facebook, I can think about the people that I love, and not feel like I'm torturing myself by not being where they are all the time. Instead, I can anticipate having them share with me what went on, instead of knowing every detail before they begin to tell me. Without my email, I'm not aware of all the "MUST-ATTEND!!!"-concerts that have passed my hometown. Instead, I can find myself interested in the show posters I pass on my Sabbath day on the college campuses. Without Google, I don't waste hours not knowing what I want to research from compulsively opening every tab and clicking on every possible link on the screen n front of me. Instead, I can concentrate better.
Of course, when Sabbath rolls around, and I find my roommates speaking with their loved ones and family members at home, I am able to remember also the blessing that technology can be, especially in a culture where folks move so often for all types of different reasons and preferences. Technology gives me the ability to hear the voice of someone I love regularly, without the uncertainty of a letter that might disappear along the way or become "untrue" by the time it arrives. Technology is able to serve those who are disabled, who might need to contact a service in another part of town. And so, as I had mentioned before, there must be a balance with the things that we utilize, because then, we can begin to notice things we haven't noticed before and we can find time that we didn't know that we had.
I think that our cellphones and tablets and our music devices and computers are things that we ought to use with great wisdom and mindfulness towards ourselves and others. There's nothing wrong with listening to music on your Ipod, but, if you always have it in your ear, someone may thing you are not listening to them, or are disinterested in connection. Our computers can distract us from being with the ones we live with. We can find ourselves at restaurants texting through the whole dinner date instead of engaging with our friends in front and beside us. We can end up instragramming our whole day to impress folks we'll never meet. And we can easily resort to locking ourselves up in our bedrooms ranting to a schoolmate instead of healthfully resolving a conflict with our roommate. In fact, I fear for when this technology fast ends that, I'll find myself back in a world where people don't listen to each other or enjoy the presence of others. I could find myself in a world where I can isolate myself in front of the computer and wish to be somewhere different -- unless I make a commitment.
Unless I make a commitment to do the best I can to find out what it means to be where I am, in this moment with the people that I've been given to share this time and place with. In my journey of discovering what it means to love G-d, and to love my neighbor including myself, my greatest motivation for not hiding or losing myself in the distracted and impersonal world of excessive technology is the commitments that I make to myself and to others, the commitment to be present, intentional and aware.
Although I haven't completely mastered the art of being where I am yet, I think that, these past few weeks have allowed me to look both inward in my heart and outward to what surrounds me regarding how technology affects all of this. I've notice how valuable it is to have less distractions and less things to worry about, and how precious the place that I am in really is. I find myself noticing, essentially. Noticing, noticing, noticing. I think that is the thing we need in order to appreciate where we are, perhaps the real art to be pursued: the art of noticing.
