Alone, But Not Lonely

Roughly three years ago I was most dissatisfied with the way things were in my life. So as a social experiment – which I believed would help me to revaluate the friendships and acquaintances that I had at that time – I decided that I would turn my phone off and leave it off.

I didn’t buy phone credit on regular basis at that time (I still don’t) and I didn’t talk to hundreds of people that regularly either (I still don’t), so it wasn’t actually that difficult. I had a few close friends and enough personal and professional contacts that I kept relatively up to date with. That was enough. It is also worth pointing out here that I have other ways of communicating with the people in my life, including a landline phone, an internet connection and then there’s real time interaction. Surprised?

My Life – Unplugged

Yet occasionally I’d pull the plug on the landline too and have previously uninstalled my main messenger software for months at a time; if I don’t want to be contacted, it won’t be possible do so. I’m stubborn and I think this is healthy. Yeah, so at this time of hibernation of sort I was on my summer break from University and my plan was that this would help me . . .  somehow. Allowing me to observe the reaction of myself and those that know me . . . much like the brief has outlined here.

Evaluating My Feelings

I didn’t feel anything for the first two weeks except for my own dissatisfaction, as I had imagined I probably would. Perhaps I even attracted this though, through acting this way. Some more time passed and unbeknown to me one of my good friends had sent me a text although I did not reply within what he’d considered a reasonable timeframe. Then when he pulled me up on it the only thing I felt was irritation, asking:- why would one of my good friends want to talk to me above all the other people he knows? Is he falsely inflating ideas of friendship and let me down afterwards?

The Perfect Balance Of Thought

In the past it has been very easy for me to shut people out and forget them as opposed to letting them in and embracing them. I believe this shares a strong connection with the relationship intelligent and rational thinking people are currently developing with their media streams; of which young people are the most visible respondents. I find young people like me learn to protect their minds sooner in their lives from information which disrupts the perfect balance of thought; consequently it is harder to reach them. I believe this to be an innate survival tactic.

Absorbing Expansive Concepts

There is a lot happening in the world and many young people such as myself are very aware of this fact. It would then follow that each generation has, at the very least, a greater opportunity than the last to make increasingly educated decisions and implement these into decisive action. It is my belief that growing up quicker, learning faster, loosing innocence sooner and generally being conditioned to absorb expansive concepts and ideas with a greater level of understanding at an earlier age does not produce the best results in many developing young people.

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