Part 1…
I’ve wanted more of the technology, the data points, the information to improve my wellbeing. Our iPhone and Apple Watch track our every move, alerting us to high decibels, elevated heart rate, and whether or not we’ve hit our fitness goals. We have smart mattresses and smart rings that track our sleep, analyzing our bodies and making suggestions based on algorithmic data.
We are outsourcing our intuition at every turn. The smart toothbrush. The smart car. A continuous blood sugar monitor.
When does it end? And what is the cost? Instead of being trained to listen to our bodies and interpret those signals to enhance healing, regeneration, and growth, we let companies tell us what we need and when we need it. I am fully in that trap, but I can’t help but think these sophisticated technologies are goading us into overconsumption and distraction from the everyday stressors. Commute, work, typing, computers, cell phone, calls, street noise, ambulances, ChatGPT, traffic, etc.
I covered a related angle in My Top 3 Favorite Hikes (Thus Far!).
I’ve written more about this in Run the Extra Mile.
Our lives have been molded around a system that keeps us stuck. Our environment shapes us in very defining ways, yet as the ultimate purveyors, we persist in the same system that makes us sick, weak, vulnerable, and unfulfilled. So companies and governments step in to “improve our lives” while slowly taking away our autonomy. Before we know it, we won’t even recognize ourselves. I believe it has come from a good place. But we deny the way we feel when we wake up in pain, stressed, sick, and dreaming of that two week vacation at the end of the year.
Instead of creating an oasis based on our unique individual needs, we lay in our manufactured beds built by someone we don’t know, in our cookie cutter houses, a stone’s throw away from neighbors we’ve barely exchanged pleasantries with, eating food from a farm across the world. We retreat from social activity at every turn while “relaxing” on the couch, watching Netflix, letting our minds be fed by dopamine hits that fall after each episode.
It is no wonder community is lacking. We have no capacity after a stressful day, fighting off one interruption to our natural state after another. The energy to socialize, help our neighbors, and attend events has collapsed by the end of the day, and the only effort we can exert is to grasp the remote, an Uber Eats meal, and a comfortable couch. I can’t blame us.
I don’t have the answers.
Part 2 coming soon…