BAN CELLPHONES! Somehow we got along without them ten years ago…
Ahh, now there I have to differ with ya…
my only phone is my cell, because two cells (mine and my wife’s) with plenty of options are cheaper than what the G.D.M.F. phone company wants for a single line. I need two lines for my business and with our local monopoly line-layer that doubles the price on top of the asanine taxes required of me for a land line. When the phone company will give me two lines with HSBB internet access for less than $40 (taxes included) I’ll think about giving those bastards my business again.
I, rather than call for a ban, self-implement a code of conduct for the use of my phone; never in the car, never at work (unless pertaining to work), never in any place where it’s use may be disruptive.
Simple as that.
I doubt that my plan would work for the rude generation though, as so few are actually capable of true self-govornment in regards to either their cell phones or their emotions.
Yes, and it’s not just us older, curmudgeons in training, it’s noticed by anyone who genuinely gives a hoot about another person. I’ve seen (and interfered with ) rude clerks giving someone a hard time. I’ve stood by while the parents of a young teen lies her face off to them about why I’m standing there waiting for her parents to come pick her up (and filled them in with some of the facts). I’ve noticed the print for seniors’ medication get smaller and smaller, and the documentable road behavior that endangers folks’ very lives to keep from being ‘last in line’. It’s not new at all, but it sure as the dickens is becoming more and more ‘the norm’.
Plus, it is always way worse at Holiday time… ah the spirit of the season… spite!
I used to gather firewood with a Buddhist woodsman;
he paid me to work for him. One day he struck a
bee’s hive in fallen log he was cutting with his
chain saw. He was engulfed by a swarm of angry
bees, and as he ran he shouted:
Denny, thanks, for the photo of Ram Dass. My copy of “Be Here Now” is long gone in my many moves, but I remember that it was a remarkable book, unlike any other book that I have seen since.
Even though I am a graduate of another university, because of my location I receive the magazine of Purdue University, which is located here in West Lafayette. There was a quoted passage in the Fall issue that “speaks to our condition”, as the Quakers would say.
“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”
Henry David Thoreau
Slow down, simplify, get off the fast moving conveyorbelt. Your enjoyment of life goes up tremendously when you have the quiet time to contemplate the simple things - one at a time. You learn to focus, greatly enhansing your ablility to produce music for example. You are happier and more content in a quiet world and can take the time to understand the views of others, creating connection and empathy. I think most of us in the Pub here probably understand this, to what ever extent we practice it.
"Blow up your tv, throw away the papers, move to the country, build us a home. Have a lot of children, feed em on peaches, let them find Jesus, on their own. " John Prine
I cannot discern any in principle conflict between “multi tasking” and being here now. Anyone who plays music may notice that they dance as they play and some people even READ the music as they play (God forbid!). And they still play beautifully and with passion. In fact simultaneity is an expression of the limitless potential of consciousness which parallels the infinite dimensionalities of the NOW.
Even the past is present in the now. Can anyone deny that?
The issue at pain is not the issue of “multi tasking” but the quality of consciousness that attends to it.
That’s not really multitasking, though - you’re doing several things at once but they are all related. Now, if you’re playing music while reading a novel and paying your bills - that’s multitasking.
Child, relationality is a capacity of consciousness. The higher one’s consciousness the broader the span of relationality. Even Ram Dass’s guru knows this.
The cable guy was multitasking last night. He was somewhere else while he was installing my new cable converter. Then, once he got here he was channel surfing while he was installing it, and at the same time, he borrowed my phone to make time with the dispatcher. And he ate some of my kids candy at the same time!
I would have said something, but at the same time (believe it or not, he was multi-tasking EVEN MORE), he was really creeping me out. It’s evidently the one thing he’s good at.
It is interesting that a lot of people feel “creeped out” when they meditate. Whether its focussing on a mundane multitasker or a divine multitasker, a candy thief or a butter thief, the good light or the blinding light, the Oh void or the devoid, there is always a certain group of people who meet this psycho-spiritual threshold of creeping out. It is a part of their own psyche.
My only advice to such people is to remain steadfast in the here and now ( a pop coinage but, nevertheless, helpful). Simply observe how the activities of the candy thieving cable man coincide with the feeling of creeping out in the here and now. Simply observe how the cashier ignoring you is coincident with a feeling of frustartion or anger. Simply observe in the here and now. Do not try to change your feeling or the external stimuli, do not try to increase it or to stop it. Simply observe these things as they arise in the mind in the here and now. Observe their arising and their passing away.
Thus continues the effortless effort of observing in the here and now.
My job is multitasking. All day long. I’d never really thought about it as that until now.
I think the basic problem with rudeness by service personell is that they are usually having to do the job of several people instead of just one. Stores and most businesses no longer hire enough workers to give good service.
A rude person will be rude whether they are doing much or nothing. Even on a beautiful summers day on the beach they will be rude. Even if you give way to them in traffic when you didn’t need to, they will be rude.
What you describe is not real rudeness. These people are being thoughtless, not rude. They are not paying attention. True rudeness is studied and deliberate. It takes practise and great skill to be truly rude.
Research shows that women are better multi-taskers than men. Thank God! When I was a bank teller, they asked me to wait on custoners at the teller window and answer the telephone at the same time. I had a hard time doing that. Then one day a young man came in with a large tax refund check. I had to buy money from the vault, because I didn’t have that much money in my drawer. Then the phone rang, and I got distracted from the transaction that I was trying to process. It turns out that I gave the young man a thousand dollars more that what I should have given him. I saw the mistake immediately, buy the man, a non-customer, grabbed the money and headed for the door. I reported the mistake to my supervisor, but I don’t think that the bank was ever able to retrieve the funds.
In my reality, there really isn’t such a thing as multi-tasking. We can only pay attention to one thing at a time. When we think we are multi-tasking we are only paying attention to one thing at a time - and that thing changes from moment to moment. When we shift our focus from one thing to the next we short-change focus on every task at hand. Focusing on one thing for longer before we shift is much better for creativity, emotional health and productivity. Multi-tasking and focus shifting, rapid, instant, interruptions, people and things demanding our attention - these things in moderation are stimulating; when they are your life they sap your energy and your patience, destroy your ability to think and see clearly. Don’t fall into this trap. It is exciting at first, but like a heroin addict, it will be your downfall. For your New Year’s resolution, get off the conveyor belt, if only for a little while, for a break, some rest. Chill a while. The shocking thing will be that the world goes on without you. As it will when your time is done.
) rude clerks giving someone a hard time. I’ve stood by while the parents of a young teen lies her face off to them about why I’m standing there waiting for her parents to come pick her up (and filled them in with some of the facts). I’ve noticed the print for seniors’ medication get smaller and smaller, and the documentable road behavior that endangers folks’ very lives to keep from being ‘last in line’. It’s not new at all, but it sure as the dickens is becoming more and more ‘the norm’.
