Tag: humanity

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Completely Focused On Being Scattered

Pete Huryk

In 1925 President Calvin Coolidge famously said that “The business of America is business.”  Almost a full century later, those words are still quoted often enough for it to be recognized.  Since the proliferation of the internet to most households, the pace of information exchange and communication has continued to increase almost exponentially.  The problem is that with so much information flying around, very few people are taking the time to communicate or do anything to the best of their ability.  It seems that with technology as our guide “The business of America is BUSYness.”   There is no soap box under my feet.  I am not chastising, judging or pointing a ridiculing finger.  This post is as much for me as it is for anyone who reads it.

focusDistraction is a way of life in the country at the moment.  Not only is completing tasks without getting distracted difficult but the fear of missing out (FOMO) seems to be an almost pervasive issue.  People have divided their focus between too many activities and are simultaneously getting distracted from them.  It’s a recipe for disaster no matter how you slice it.  No one can be everywhere for everyone every time.  Distraction always comes with a price tag and it is not you who is profiting.  The losses are felt by you, your family, your friends, your colleagues and classmates.  The people who are actually in your life are the ones who are missing out on a key component of their experience and that is you.  All of you, not the partial you that has a technological device in hand “JUST IN CASE!”  The cyborg version of you that cannot let go of the phone, tablet or computer has a distinct weakness, it is never fully present.

So many of our systems are built largely upon attendance but that model is at best flawed and at worst catastrophically broken. Absence, attendance, presence, engagement and immersion are very different levels of an inverted pyramid of human involvement.  While attendance is a nice start, it is just barely above absence and meets only minimum requirements.  Showing up is just not enough.  To really take full advantage of this life that you have been gifted, you must strategically move up the pyramid with the things that you have decided really matter.  And there lies the problem we must DECIDE.  Decide comes from the Latin meaning to cut off.   We must cut off the things that don’t matter in order to preserve the things that do.    Our focus needs to be cut down to that which we value most.

The only person who can win this focus battle for you is you.  Anyone can suggest, plead or punish you to do it but you do not have to comply until you choose.  In the end there are so many companies and individuals who want your focus.  It is your job to divvy it out as you see fit or scatter it without a care.  Where you put your focus determines your life.  If you decide to immerse yourself in Facebook, that is your choice and far be it from me to judge.  As long as it is a decision and not a resignation to the world of distraction.  Choose what you want for yourself before others choose for you.

Pete

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.  -Theodore Roosevelt

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The Air Conditioning Farce

Pete Huryk

heatIn these hot summer days of New Jersey, an air conditioned house, store or office is a sanctuary.  Relief from the pounding heat and humidity seems as if it is a necessity.  I often think about our “pre-AC” ancestors and how they reacted to days like this.  Most likely, they had to be slightly more intelligent about breaks, shade and water.  The prospect of artificial cool was long off in the future.  Like so many of our modern conveniences, the advancement of technology seems to come attached to a double result: the desired effect and it’s opposite.

An air conditioner is thought of as a cooling mechanism, unless you visit the back end of the unit.  There you will realize that the AC unit is producing almost as much heat as cold.  So the cool factor is for a selected space and temporary.  When the heat and cool reunite, the entire equation is most likely a wash.   The effect for us as the recipients is not particularly a wash.  The perception of cool and hot becomes skewed.  While we have in theory “beaten the heat” by creating air conditioning, we’ve made ourselves less able to adapt to it when it is thrust upon us.  This inverse relationship is evident in many areas.  The internet has connected us all but we are losing our ability to communicate.  Everyone has a phone in their pocket but people are talking less.  We have more information than ever about the human body and how it works best but obesity and diabetes are rampant.  It is as if we have forgotten something that could bring us back to the center.  The thing that we have forgotten is that we are animals.  Specifically we are mammals who were intended to find an equilibrium with our surroundings in order to survive.

The technological advances that we have created have brought us off of our center where we feel like we need to adapt.  The world is supposed to adapt to us, right?  Not quite, when we forget our heritage, not too subtle reminders will be visited upon us.  So my message is pretty simple: Find out, without!  Find out who you are without all of the gadgets that you use to cause comfort.  Think, plan and execute some time in an outdoor environment that slightly tests who you are as a human animal.  An overnight hike, a day without air conditioning, a period of time with no cell phone or any other exercise that allows you to come back to a natural center.  (Yes!  I realize that I’m asking you to unplug while writing an article over the internet.  Hypocrisy?  Only if I did this without doing what I prescribe.)

So find out, without!  Find out whether or not you can have a face to face conversation with one of your Facebook friends.  Find out if you really would shrivel up in this heat or do you just need to have a plan for hydration and find shade.  The human animal has conquered this world and found now that his biggest adversary is himself.  Don’t get crushed by your comfort!

See you along the path!

Pete

 

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Invisible People

Pete Huryk

InvisibleAs a teacher, I take pride in the fact that I learn all of my students’ first and/or last name within the first three days of class.  Learning the names of over 100 people in that amount of time is not always easy but it is good for building a rapport with people.  There are plenty of tricks to acquiring information that quickly.  Unfortunately the honest truth is that I don’t remember all of the names after the year is over.  The other day a former student came to visit and it took about five minutes for me to remember her first name.  While I’m not proud of this event, I don’t feel all that badly about it either.  The information was in there but just not near the top of the filing system.  I feel much worse when I first meet someone and less than a minute later, I don’t remember their name.

There are many reasons why this happens but a major one is that new people aren’t usually important to us yet.  In English class you may remember your teacher talking about the “first person”, “second person” and “third person”.  That basically represents the way that we used to define people’s importance.  In a pre-technology world, the most important person in our lives was ‘self’.  This was followed by the people we had contact with directly.  Finally there was the rest of the world that held up that third position.  Now there is a third class of people, invisible.

Invisible people are all around us.  Of course they’re not truly invisible.  We can see them if we look hard enough.  The reason we usually don’t see them is because we’re looking at our phone, TV or tablet.  In theory these should be “third person”, people that are there but you are not directly interacting with.  The problem is that position has now been replaced by the “second person”.  These are the people that we are in direct contact with but today they are almost universally ignored in favor of the digital.  The digital second person is basically the default contact that we reach to before anyone else.  For some, it seems as though all people have become invisible people.

So this weekend, give life back to the invisible people.  Take the time to see who is there.  Engage with people you know and don’t know on human level.  Remember that a hug is better than text.  A smile is better than a like.  Time with an old friend is better than a new Facebook friend.  Technology is a tool just like a hammer.  Used correctly, both are intended to build.  Used incorrectly, both have the possibility to destroy.  Be human this weekend and visit with the invisible people.