Connections

I think therefore I am.... In our age things are made to be faster, more user friendly and more efficient. The hope is that these objects will be so easy to use that they become an extension of our body, successfully transforming us from human to cyborg. The less we have to think and the more intuitive technology becomes, the happier people are. Though I am guilty of these desires and I understand the pleasure of technology, I fear we are losing, or perhaps even sacrificing, parts of our humanity. Our social lives are now a constant with text messaging, e-mails, instant messengers, and social networking sites. We are closer than ever before but still we feel a distance (one that many feel comfortable with) growing in the human condition. I would not be surprised to hear that 70% or more of our social life is digital. How has the need of human touch, the beauty of a smile, or perfect words with a hand on your shoulder been pushed aside by technology? The machines we use have become mother and father, confessor and forgiver, lover and betrayer; where there once was flesh there is now the World Wide Web. This technology may make you feel, at times, like you are part of something bigger. You may feel that because your consciousness can travel through to the other side of the world that we are all connected. This is a lie. We were always connected through the bond of human nature. Now we can talk about reality and get what we want more efficiently from farther away, be it entertainment or commodity.  The internet is a selfish thing in most cases, though it asks us what we want and it delivers to us. It satisfies the individual’s desires in the now. One no longer has to think about what is good and bad because the time to think is over; true love is just a click away. Thinking is a thing of the past, live in the now. But thinking is what defines us. It is all that is our being. For thousands upon thousands of years man has been using his brain to think, to understand, to reason, to dream, and now we let machines do it for us. Yes, technology can be used to bring our imagination to life but we would not cease to be creative without it. 

Thinking is not just the reading of information, it is the searching for it, the time one ponders on it and rules if it is applicable to one’s own life. I think therefore I am.  But I think that when we think, when we sit and contemplate, we cannot help through introspection to think about others. We are drawn to the idea that happiness, peace and the common good of all is in the best interest of society. When we think of others, we realize that typing a message is not enough and that a hug is much more efficient in expressing love. There is a word in an African language, UBUNTU, which means “I am because we are”. We need each other in not just a mental sense but in a physical one. We must think, so that we are aware of each other and how much we need each other. We must always understand that we exist to be with one another; we exist because of one another.