Walking Towards Fresh Spring Water: Stealing Attention Back from The Time Thieves

I have learnt to play around with time.

It happened by accident, one morning over a week ago. I awoke, and didn't go online. I didn't check my emails. I didn't check my social media. I didn't even check the weather. I knew it was pre-dawn by the light in the sky and the low slung Venus, and the crowing of a chicken I had suspected may have traitorously become rooster. I left my phone uncharged in a corner and went a-walking. I walked for hours, my thoughts loud and sharp. Returning, it was only just gone 8 o'clock. I sat with a coffee and watched the chickens for a while, trying to figure out which one had been crowing, stirred starter into sourdough for the evening's bread, tried to work out how to load film into the pinhole camera gathering dust on the self, meditated for half an hour, tidied the kitchen, planted basil, took out the bins, and it wasn't even mid morning. The day had become long, time blissfully treacley and gooey.

I had learnt the secret of gaining more time. Perhaps this is not a mystery to you and I am a slow learner, but here it is: the less attention given to the internet, the more time you will have in your life.
We are all victims of this technological time thief.

We don't believe we are, of course. We believe we are in control, and that we are just busier than ever, more busy than any people ever in history. Yet parents have more time to spend with their children than the parents of those in the 1950's, and technology makes it possible to free up more time than ever before. Yet it doesn't. Some would argue the more technology we have, the more bureacracy we have - more ways to collect data, more mail to answer, more bleeding of work time into home time because it is only a screen away. We spend more time on the internet doing nothing but entertaining ourselves or distracting ourselves than every before, and then complain we're busy, and we don't have enough time.

Five years ago I had a stress breakdown, partly because I was answering student emails til midnight and marking their essays online on the weekend, believing that was part of my responsibility and would assure me a continued job. I felt like Sisyphus, constantly pushing a load up a hill and, tumbling down, forced to do it again and again. I didn't have the power to say no, to switch off, to compartmentalize time into 'work' and 'other'.

Thus our attention is constantly divided - we are never living each moment as it comes, but living many moments threaded together. At work we spend lunchtimes online shopping, shopping, we answer work emails in the queue at the supermarket, at home, we complete work tasks. Nothing is just is because the moment we connect, our attention goes elsewhere, other than the moment we are actually living, and are actually in.

Tech gurus have become time merchants, promising time savings yet peddling wares that forces us into using more time interacting with these technologies. Hooking our internet up to the kitchen means we spend more time, not less, or at least waste our time on things we don't actually need. Consider this internet connected cocktail shaker, reviewed as follows:

"What nerdy mixologist doesn’t want an internet-connected cocktail shaker that practically makes its own drinks? The shaker, which communicates with your phone via Bluetooth, comes with a recipes app and built-in LED sensors that sound off as you pour, so you know when to “say when” for every ingredient, including ice. The gift is well-suited to those who appreciate a well-balanced drink, but don’t have enough time (or alcohol) to blindly experiment."

Further tools for the 'smart kitchen' include coffee makers who can make an eight cup pot of coffee '20 percent faster' and remotely controlling your slow cooker via the internet. Thus, not only does work life bleed into home life, domestic life bleeds into other areas of life it shouldn't. We're being sold pills by merchants who promise savings, but don't warn us about the consequences of these savings, or what we might fill this saved time with - usually, more time saving tools, more internet time. According to some data, 135 minutes a day globally. In 1945, St Exupery's 'The Little Prince' anticipated the time computations of the tech experts dealing in time:

This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need for anything to drink. "Why are you selling those?" asked the little prince. "Because they save a tremendous amount of time," said the merchant. "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes in every week." "And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?" "Anything you like..."

Our self control is utterly hijacked by thousands of people on the other side of the screen designing technology to thieve our time. We allow it because we believe we benefit from it, and in some ways we do - increased social connections, more knowledge at our fingertips than ever before. Yet more often than not we log on and are hijacked by the attention economy, unaware until something makes us look up and realise it's near midnight. And one day, we will look back on our life and wonder where the time went. I sure as hell won't remember the year I spent on Steemit.com, but I will remember the day I birthed my son, the day I met my husband, and the other days I gave attention to in undivided ways, savouring each moment with focus and a heightened awareness that comes with pure attention.

The only way to assure this is to practice attention, just as you would do any other beneficial exercise, such as the gym or healthy eating. Ten minutes a day of watching where your thoughts go can be enough. Having upped my meditation regime to make up for walking away from a meditation retreat, I was reminded how often my attention was pulled into the online world. I was horrified to see how many of my thoughts were about this, and little else. Constantly pulling my thoughts back to the present through the breath was worthy training and brought quick rewards. It became easy to notice the instinctual pull toward my phone and not react to it. I didn't lose anything from it, despite any FOMO - I gained so much more.
What did you do, I was asked, if you weren't on Steemit and you weren't on the retreat? I walked. I surfed. I gardened. I spent time with my parents, my sister and nephews. I read four books. I re-arranged the entire house to be more efficient. I screamed and cried and sat with pain and watched it disappear into the blue summer sky, rather than medicate with the distraction of the online world. I did yoga and made hemp bread and fermented turmeric and other recipes I'd been meaning to try for a while. And sometimes, when I was bored, I let myself be bored, and watched ants busy themselves with crumbs and the gum trees sway with cockatoos and the clouds pass over the sky, finding delight in these technicolour moments I miss because there is a screen in front of me. And when my man returned, I gave him my undivided attention, listened as he talked, looked into his eyes.

Even he queried me, wondering why I wasn't on Steemit. We talked about time, and attention, and where it goes. I promised that I was going to be more careful and moderate with my time spend there. He also held my hand when I told him I was going to be more cautious of the Steemtime thieves and said: 'I'm glad, honey. I thought I'd lost you.".

The Little Prince, having met the time merchant and contemplated his wares, answers:

"If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.”

Perhaps we all need to re-assess what our time is really for, and how it's best spent. I'm not going to lie on my death bed and contemplate the time spent online as the best time of my life - I'm going to remember the springs of fresh water - the time spent with family and friends, the mind expanding experiences, the creative ventures I enjoyed like gardening or the spiritual moments of ecstasy gained through dedication to practice.

I am logging off now, and walking toward an ocean of salt water, and leaving my phone behind. I'll have more than 53 minutes, and they will be my own, blissfully spent in my own time, and of my own choosing.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.riverflowings.com/?p=196

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