Look up and sniff the flowers
Scroll, scroll, scroll. I hate doing it but I can’t stop. I know I’m seeking instant gratification, and I know it’s unhealthy.
It goes beyond Instagram though. Most of my life used to be spent in the digital environment. The never-at-zero unread email inbox, messaging apps, video calls. The Netflix, HBO, Hulu. The newsletters and promotions. My attention constantly being pulled in so many different directions in the digital space. Pick me, pick me, pick me.
When we interact in a digital environment, physical connection to the experience is irrelevant and becomes lost. Day-in and day-out it’s so easy for the mind to dominate our energy, and without leveling out the weight, we teeter off-balance with our bodies and spirit atrophied.
Not only is digital information processed in disregard to most of our physical senses, but the very purpose of the digital environment — to increase efficiency — creates an overload in the amount of information itself.
Our minds work non-stop to consume and process the onslaught of information, from a digital source or otherwise, by building programmed mental shortcuts. But, as with any programming, absolute perfection doesn’t exist. There will always be anomalies that the code doesn’t account for, as the world is forever changing…
And that’s where the magic lives in the universe — in the anomalies. We all have the opportunity to tap into the magic by appreciating what we are naturally drawn to and allowing these things to expand our minds organically. They inspire us to have faith that the world is a beautiful, miraculous place, not just something that can be distilled into a codebase. Societal concepts, the code, is always steps behind. Why follow something that’s behind you, driven by other people’s magic from the past, instead of finding your own magic in the present?
Without the strength of body and spirit the mind is overcompensating, overworked, and tired, so it ignores the anomalies because it requires less energy to accept preconceived concepts rather than explore unconventional ideas. Uncharted territory is terrifying without being centered and balanced.
Many of us have become almost entirely robotic, programmed by the omnipresent streams of information; tired and predictable. By constantly relying on our mental shortcuts to make sense of what we see, we lose the courage to use our senses, our hearts, our centers, to see things as they are. To see the magic.
Yogis may refer to these mental shortcuts, these ruts, as samskaras. Psychologists have countless definitions that try to put human cognition into boxes. But, they all are saying essentially the same thing: what we attend to stays within us.
So what do we do?
Look up and sniff the flowers.
