Outside The Point in Malta, here on Malta, there is a small unusual building. Almost in the shadow of this modern shopping mall. It has an unusual atmosphere. I have passed it many times and feel strangely drawn. I'm not sure as to its age, purpose or history. I keep meaning to investigate further. But life comes along and 100 other things get in the way.
If I achieve nothing in this life, it will be because of the ‘other things’. Mind you, I like, others am endlessly distracted. We are all hard on youth these days. Accusing them of being online instead of living. Well, this online existence is very addictive. You can feed any interest, follow any news story, play any game, chat/machine message anyone, watch entertainment from all countries, old films, new films, award winning documentaries.
Be honest, if it had been available to us at their age we would not have played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians and endless chase games. We climbed trees, walked the tops of gates (like tight rope walkers), played marbles and had endless football games on our street. The latter was so intense that it had its own cup. A small golden coloured statue which doubled as a pencil sharpener was competed over with an enthusiasm that never abated. They were also endless fights with kids on the street but that was accepted as the norm. The next day your opponent would be on your football team. Loyalties were fluid and your nemesis could morph into a colleague you danced in victory with after scoring a hard one goal. You got to learn a lot about yourself and others in these interactions. For good and bad. You examined your peers and saw what behaviour was worth emulating or warranted aversion. Each day was an opportunity to be a different person. In the fluidity of who you mixed with, the multitude of unexpected conversations, a dynamic environment triggered change and chances.
Nowadays, I watch as young people plug-in and somehow go off-line. They are there but not. In the virtual world which competes for their attention and life there is less room for the interactions we remember. Apathetic resentment seems fuelled by all that energy having nowhere to go. All these expectations of choice, entertainment wins out over family claims. Even within families, time is stolen away and fundamental unity eroded. It is an unseen war and we are losing it. What is worse we are losing a generation who know longer see their families/neighbourhoods/communities as places to implement change or influence.
Be honest, if it had been available to us at their age we would not have played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians and endless chase games. We climbed trees, walked the tops of gates (like tight rope walkers), played marbles and had endless football games on our street. The latter was so intense that it had its own cup. A small golden coloured statue which doubled as a pencil sharpener was competed over with an enthusiasm that never abated. They were also endless fights with kids on the street but that was accepted as the norm. The next day your opponent would be on your football team. Loyalties were fluid and your nemesis could morph into a colleague you danced in victory with after scoring a hard one goal. You got to learn a lot about yourself and others in these interactions. For good and bad. You examined your peers and saw what behaviour was worth emulating or warranted aversion. Each day was an opportunity to be a different person. In the fluidity of who you mixed with, the multitude of unexpected conversations, a dynamic environment triggered change and chances.
Nowadays, I watch as young people plug-in and somehow go off-line. They are there but not. In the virtual world which competes for their attention and life there is less room for the interactions we remember. Apathetic resentment seems fuelled by all that energy having nowhere to go. All these expectations of choice, entertainment wins out over family claims. Even within families, time is stolen away and fundamental unity eroded. It is an unseen war and we are losing it. What is worse we are losing a generation who know longer see their families/neighbourhoods/communities as places to implement change or influence.
Instead, we are breeding a captive mentality that accepts the state of things. Just embraces the hopelessness of change. Life becomes a game already lost because they opt not to actually live but become spectators of this world’s disintegration. We despair of them and they of us. We despair because we remember a different world, they despair because they know too much about this real world. Communication channels become fraught with our inability to coax them out of this virtual world they have become immersed in. We languish in the shallows of this world sensing its attraction but longing for real meaningful conversations. I clicked on my history (in Chrome) and was floored by what I have watched online the hours spent, the time wasted and realised I was no longer in the shallows but actually already out of my depth.
Joining in a virtual world separated from those I love and my friends. My attempts to swim ashore are laughable. I write letters and post them. Not emails, letters with envelopes and stamps. I walk to the postbox and push them through as if participating in an archaic custom. Try to make it two a week. Reaching out hand over hand to draw ashore against the waves. I go on long walks disengaged from the Internet and find my thoughts have time to settle. I'm reflecting more on past events and the future. It's still hard to trigger conversations! I start to talk about some world event and I'm told that they have already seen the news online. Trying to speak about the things I've done or thought, I sense their desire to get back to the world of perpetual entertainment. How can any of us compete with all of that?
At times I think I’ve neared the shore and safety. We share a walk and really talk heart to heart. Play a board game and laugh at our childish desire to win. But, these are just threads pulled from the weave that has us all caught fast. Is there a reason we all fear silence? Perhaps, because in that freedom from sound/talk/music we begin to measure ourselves. Not these people over here, or yesterday's news, today's happenings but us. Without all the distraction flowing in torrents over us we could be confronted with who we really are. What we have actually become? With this avalanche of addictive output to focus on, there is no need to look inward and take our own pulse. But if we no longer know ourselves have we not already lost our way? I'm back stumbling in the shallows determined to emerge on dry land and seem to have have developed a tail. How on earth did that happen and are you too becoming equally deformed?
At times I think I’ve neared the shore and safety. We share a walk and really talk heart to heart. Play a board game and laugh at our childish desire to win. But, these are just threads pulled from the weave that has us all caught fast. Is there a reason we all fear silence? Perhaps, because in that freedom from sound/talk/music we begin to measure ourselves. Not these people over here, or yesterday's news, today's happenings but us. Without all the distraction flowing in torrents over us we could be confronted with who we really are. What we have actually become? With this avalanche of addictive output to focus on, there is no need to look inward and take our own pulse. But if we no longer know ourselves have we not already lost our way? I'm back stumbling in the shallows determined to emerge on dry land and seem to have have developed a tail. How on earth did that happen and are you too becoming equally deformed?
