A couple of months ago, I sort of had an epiphany and I really wanted to put it down in the form of a blog. But then ennui engulfed me and then time did what it usually does, got away from me. So here I am finally able to put down my not-so-fresh thoughts.
A couple of months ago, I had this bright idea of going to a
jungle safari. I opted for a 3 day sojourn during a long weekend. The idea was
to get away from the hubbub of the city and spend 3 days in nature’s lap
surrounded by flora and fauna and find that ever elusive inner peace. In
theory, it was a plan which was very attractive, but in practicality, in the middle of a really hot summer, it didn’t
exactly pan out like that, at least initially.
The resort was actually in the middle of the jungle, which
makes sense now that I think about it. But to reach there was an odyssey all by
itself. For the last 15 kms there was no road, there was no internet because
there was no network and hence there was no google maps. All there was were
these small little rusted boards with the name of the resort and an arrow mark,
strewn along the path at not so regular intervals. After several wrong turns and
turn arounds, we finally reached the resort and were allotted a cute little
cottage right on the edge of a river. It
was one of the most beautiful setting to stay in, but I was too occupied worrying
about what seemed to be a goliath of a problem: there was no cell network, no
wifi and thus no internet.
We all like to deny having a screen addiction problem, but
the truth is that it has grown into a full-grown epidemic. The first day there,
I was getting super restless. My hands were twitchy and I kept unlocking the
phone every 15-20 minutes half on impulse and half by habit. By the first half
of second day, it got so bad in my mind that I even considering returning back
to the city. By the evening of second day, I went to roam around without the
smartphone in my pocket and by the third day, the phone was just a camera. I
was taking it out only to capture the beautiful panoramic views and the fun we
were having as a family. By the time we had checked out, I had almost left my
phone back in the cottage.
Once that initial phase passed, I was so happy not to have
the distraction of the phone, the constant messages, mails, pings,
notifications that I really felt as if I was in the moment, enjoying with the
people close to me and having fun. The trip was almost therapeutic. Once I got
back to the daily grind, the first day, I had a screen time of just 1 hour 35
minutes, the entire day.
And then you go back to the routine, the cacophony, the
hullabaloo and the phone almost becomes a part of your body, an extension of
your hand almost, and with that it starts again where you are present somewhere
but not really present anywhere. We come back to square one, which is not a
good place in the current era of internet and smartphones.
I am sure that many of the readers of this blog would be
like, I don’t have a screen addiction. One must face that reality and
acknowledge that there is a problem. It is the first stage of solving any
problem. Our day-to-day lives are being run by smartphones and slowly the AI is
creeping into it and we are yet to fully realize it. For work, we cant really
avoid these things but what we can avoid is to decrease its omnipotence in our
personal lives and then may be we can start our way back to finding the balance
in our lives.
I will end with a cliché. Go out in the rain, smell the
roses, have actual conversations with your loved ones and try to keep the
phones and the distractions it brings away as much as possible. Who knows, you
may end up enjoying a jungle safari or two.
