The Loss of Reality

Today I'd like to dig into a theory about our loss of reality and how this constantly creates a search for nostalgia and a crave for capturing moments. When I first took in this idea it sat pretty heavy with me because I felt like I was often reaching for a better grasp on reality and in some ways doing it unconsciously with my phone. I believe as my generation grew up on our phones we did lose touch whether it be with ourselves, with our childhood, or just with the world around us. Once we feel this because we have a camera in our pocket at all times we turn to trying to capture moments instead of living in them.

The Constant Desire to Record

As we have all seen a million times, people love to record any sort of concert or event they're at and put it on any sort of socials. Also, lets be honest no one is watching the entire five minutes of a concert you put on snapchat, shoot no one's watching any of it. I think it's habits like this that diminish our sense of feelings or reality, we could be experiencing the most eventful thing in your life, and bam we pull out your phone. We're always told we miss so much while being on our phones, but do we miss anything while recording what's happening on our phones? YES, the instant you pull out your phone to record your emotions and awareness instantly take the hit for that. Just because we're somewhere and paying attention to what's happening doesn't mean we're in that moment. Being in that moment means whatever you want to be 'capturing' so bad, you should be giving your full undivided attention. This is the only way you can get the most out of something emotionally or spiritually. Put your phone down and plug yourself into what's happening.

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Why Do We Feel so Distanced From the World?

I think we feel so disconnected because of our screen time and reliance on capturing moments to make them feel real. A lot of us have most likely missed potentially really critical moments because of our desire to capture a moment so we can look back and make it feel more real. Between hours of screen time a day and the addiction of capturing moments we're so aesthetically distant from everything emotionally. Due to this we begin to feel so desperate for nostalgia, with the addition of attributes the phone teaches us we begin to try and use pictures to show us the complexity of the world. I think we're afraid of basking in these moments because we're so afraid if we don't capture them we won't remember them at all. In contrast we're not getting the full-effect of anything because we're nearly zombies just living the way our phones have taught us to. It's as if we're trapped between a search for reality or some sort of euphoric moment to bring us back into the world, but we're a slave to the way these devices have trained us to rely on them to get us back to those real feelings we have as a child.

How Can We Find Ourselves Again?

I realize I've been a slave to many of these types of things before, so I ask myself how can I escape this? At least do my best to try and feel more connected to the world and hopefully find some extra emotions in some critical moments. I wish I could say that even when doing the things I love most I still want to constantly capture these moments instead of admiring them. I have taken pictures with intention to post that I think took me out of many moments on the water. I also have a habit of taking pictures without intentions to share just so I can admire them later on, by capturing these moments of wildlife or memories with friends am I taking the genuine appeal of it away? Sadly, I think we do take a little bit of a memory out when we try so hard to capture things. Even when fishing why do we always want to get a picture with a nice fish? Does this have to do with our obsession to share everything on social media? I mean if everyone didn't see it did it really even happen? I think this mindset of needing to share everything with the world takes away a lot of reality away from us.

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For us to at least attempt to start and find ourselves again I think we start with the basics, no phones at dinner, leave our phones in the car before church, and maybe take a day or two breaks from our socials. This sounds super basic and I don't believe the entire process of finding ourselves or getting in legitimate touch with reality is this easy but I do believe it's the only way to start. I don't think our phones are the anti-christ like my blog today may have portrayed but I think as humans we have addictive tendencies and we're super mind-integrated people. With all this being considered it's no wonder we get lost at times, but it's up to us and not our phones to get ourselves back to that unconsciously way of just living in the moment.