Attachment
“Attachment
is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by
someone who is detached.”
Simone
Weil
We
are entering the fourth day of what is supposed to be screen-free
week in the U.S. Obviously, I didn't make the cut. Attachment to
technology verges on addiction in America. Sometimes I think we are
headed toward “Borg-dom.” We may all have robotic hands and feet
and computer activated voices that speak for us. The idea of
screen-free week is a little like the idea of Sabbath—a time of
detachment, a time when we might encounter one another face to face,
rather than on Facebook or Twitter—those great illusions of
connection.
When
Weil spoke of attachment, however, she did not have computers in
mind. She died in 1943, after a lifetime of activism on behalf of the
poor and disenfranchised. She spoke more about our attachment to the
world and all the distractions that keep us away from things that
really matter. It's difficult in the cacophony of our days in this
world, to think of anything spiritual, much less to go inside and
experience the unity that is God. It's strange, don't you think, that
even though we know the benefits of such internal devices as prayer
and meditation, most of us choose not to engage them. We could experience the
timelessness of eternity with twenty minutes a day of regular
meditation, and yet we prefer to tweet our bff that we're putting on
our socks and they don't match! Lord, have mercy. What is that all
about?
We
are attached, we humans. To each other, to our techno-addictions, and
to the world's values. They are our tar-baby. Once stuck, it's
difficult to pull free. Let me know how you're doing with screen-free
week. I'm a total failure!
In
the spirit,
Jane
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