To me, relaxing in the 21st century is simply impossible without the disturbance of technology. To others, relaxing in the 21st century is extremely challenging without the presence of technology. Technology is [now] everywhere, it’s always around. Even if you’re naked in the desert with not a battery-powered device or motorized vehicle within 500 miles, there are still multiple satellites in low-earth orbit, just a few dozen miles above your head.
You might ask yourself, why is it so hard to relax? It’s not that relaxing is hard, it’s just that there are too many disturbances…the primary being technology. Whether the phone rings, an email comes in or an airplane flies overhead, technology is infiltrating modern man. Technology cannot leave us alone and we need it to survive…a symbiotic relationship I guess. Our love for technology has grown so strong that we cannot divorce it. Our lust for information, data and constant connectivity has thrust us into an eternal whirlwind of technological dependency.
The vices of technology have seriously constrained human freedom and, at the same time, allowed it to flourish and advance. Our technological advances have grown so strong that we simply cannot live without it. We now speak in technological jargon and live in an instantaneously connected and wired world: “my network,” “IM me”, “message me”, “email me”, “Facebook me”, “FedEx it”, “Xerox it”, “call my cell”, “TiVo it”, “upload/download”, “what’s the 411”, “tweet”, “newsfeed”, “alarm clock”, “timer”, “microwave”, etc. Anything we do or say has technology tied into it somewhere.
Before the Digital Revolution, relaxing was the simple action “to relax.” Now in 2010 at the vanguard of technological advancements, relaxing [when done properly] is known as “unplugging” or “to unplug.” Here’s my ironic story:
Sitting in my backyard last weekend I was, in a transcendental state of relaxation (no chemical enhancements, thank you very much), absorbing as much cosmic rays as possible. I said to my girlfriend how great it is to unplug every now and again.
We both work in marketing [advertising, public relations] in New York City and we’re constantly using technology to conduct and complete work. Even on vacation, our Blackberry and Palm Pre were checked multiple times a day. We felt naked without our “connection to the world” devices.
Analyzing my state of relaxation, or unplugging, further, I realized that I was in-fact listening to my iPod. In the short time span of declaring my technological freedom in my backyard, I become conscious of the fact that I wasn’t unplugged – only relaxing. This humored me a bit. I thought to myself, “Unplugging: plugged into my iPod,” this is worthy of a blog post.
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