I HAVE FRIENDS WHO HAVE BEEN, AND ARE, IN REHAB and the first thing I’ve noticed is that once they have broken away from whatever addictive behaviors were stunting their growth they pretty much are on the same path as me. Really, we are all in rehab. Life is broken, we are broken, put a bandaid on the planet!
It has become chic these days to be in rehab; it’s almost become a badge of honor to admit it openly. That is partly because of the extremely high rate of opiate addiction in this country – both prescribed and illegal. It’s a growth industry. And it’s self-perpetuating. 85% of all people in rehab will NEVER be cured. They will be back for rehab 2,3,4… if they have the insurance or state and federal aid for it. It’s just camp and a little R&R until they get back on the street and do it all over again. The death rates are astounding.
And it is important to distinguish between recovery and relapse. There is a huge difference between “crash and burn” and “trip, stumble and fall”. Rehab is the emergency room, relapse is the out-patient clinic and urgent care, and recovery is the way it really is; for all of us! In a spiritual sense of the words, we are all recovering human beings, saved by grace, constantly relapsing. So, while the paths may be different, we are all on the same journey. (As Hank William’s sang, “I’ll never get out of this world alive”; I’m just trying to get out of this place intact.)
Forget about the 1% we hear so much about. Life is all about that miraculous 15% of us – the rehabbers, relapsers, relics and ressurrected -where life once again becomes a journey of endless possibilities and personal development. That’s where we team up, the rest of us 15 per centers, because that’s about the percentage of people actually living an integrated life. We can’t make this journey all alone. It takes two to tango and experience the dance we call life.
Well, I’ve been dancing with digital for more than 45 years and it’s time for me to detox. I have written before about the importance of taking digital sabbaths.
It’s summer and the time when folks take a vacation. This summer I am taking a month long digital vacation. I’m not going cold turkey, but I am disconnecting from nearly all of the digital distractions in my life and taking time to disengage from this fractal reality that is now, unavoidably, my life. I don’t want my MTV for a while. I need to find my head again, regain some bandwidth here on the ground, hit the bike trails, hang out at the coffee shops, visit friends and family. Basically I need to reconnect with myself.
This digital angst is unsettling. I’m out of balance and seem to have lost my way in the real world, having spent too much time in the virtual worlds that are so captivating and demanding of my time and attention. So, I’m pulling my head out of the screens and reconnecting with the universe.
I realize I have to do a better job of being me, of finding a wholesome integration of all these new technologies. I’ve been like a kid in the candy shop, sampling all the new flavors of tech for far too many years. I feel like Edmund and his Turkish Delight in The Chronicles of Narnia. There’s no digital anything I won’t sample. And, basically, it’s all good. But, like anything, too much of it will make you ill. And I am increasingly aware of my ‘ill-ness’ and ‘dis-ease’, as opposed to my normal Pooh and Tigger selves.
So I’m taking a break from cyberspace and hopefully reintegrating my headspace and soulspace, so that I can more successfully navigate this mediated reality that’s become my life.
I’ll be back!! Enjoy your holidays as well.
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