Observe don’t Absorb

The dream of escaping this hyper-connected world is simply that. A dream. It is not based in reality, and even if it was, the desire to leave the world we are born into, to disregard those in our local community, is irresponsible and weak. 

I understand the urge to escape. We are bombarded with constant distraction and a million things that hijack our attention in hopes of getting a rise out of our nervous system. The news we consume, the music we listen to, the headlines that flash before our eyes all are meant to evoke an emotion out of you, often a negative one: anger, lust, loneliness, rage, jealousy, and all other feelings of inadequacy. 

I am no better. I do this and will continue to do so. That is the game I am playing. 

Realize that despite the intimate connection we have through this newsletter, I am willing to use sensational content to poke you just enough to get a reaction. I benefit from your emotional instability. It gets me views, it gets me comments, it gets me likes, it gets me one of the most coveted things in the world: attention. 

Recently, I shared a story on my instagram where I feigned that I would reveal the identity of a girl I was seeing. I did so to generate hype, and it worked. 

My average story on Instagram gets 1K - 2K views.

I am telling you this because I want you to see behind the curtain.

Now think of every person and company who are competing to get your attention. They do not care about you. They want your attention and they want it indefinitely. 

We are told that to be a good citizen, we must “be aware of what’s going on in the world.” I don’t think we have to be, but I think it benefits us to be aware of world events as long as we can remain detached from what we are observing. 

If something gives you a negative rise causing an action that perpetuates a negative feeling, you lose. In the onslaught of information, you must learn how to analyse and filter to arrive at your own understanding of truth apart from fiction or worse yet, propaganda. 

You are now worse off for looking at the news or at social media than if you never looked in the first place. 

The obvious and repeated answer here is to get off your phone, and the extension of this is the earlier dream of escaping this world and living in a cabin in the woods. That unfortunately is not possible. So, the next best thing is to practice some form of awareness of the emotions that are called for by the things you consume. 

There is always space between stimulus and response. You can find it with a simple breath. 

Drop into your body and choose how you act. 

Observe and don’t absorb. 

- DR. 

On that note, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you my most recent conversation I had with Professor Kurt Weyland of the University of Texas - Austin - an expert on populism in Latin America. We had an hour long discussion on Venezuela and on the implications of Trump's actions. I was surprised by a lot of the things he said, and quite frankly, surprised that he agreed to speak with me on such short notice. I was fortunate enough to be in Austin to go to his office the day after he got back from Germany to record our episode. 

Do enjoy, but don’t let it absorb you.