There’s a magic to life that often goes unnoticed. You can’t really “look” for it; you simply have to make space for it.
The other day I stopped at the Starbucks at the Short Hills mall. It was around lunch time, and Starbucks has a bacon chicken sandwich that always hits the spot. I did not have my phone with me. I decided to leave it elsewhere in order to “embrace” the experience of going to Starbucks, even if that meant feeling a little bored while I waited in line.
I walked inside and hopped in a long line of busy-looking people. Almost immediately, I noticed how basically everyone in front of me was on their phones—either scrolling through what I can only assume were their social media feeds or texting someone. I must have waited up to 10 minutes, but almost no one picked their heads up from their screens until it was their turn to order.
I told myself to not judge them. I knew how easily that could have been me if I had my phone with me.
It makes sense, right? Why wait in a line when we can pass the time by scrolling through our phones? But maybe that mindset is precisely the problem.
When you watch older movies or TV shows, you see people living life. You see them sharing common experiences. You see strangers meeting and chatting. You see people engaged with what it is they’re doing—not trying to completely numb or distract oneself from the process and experience that occurs in between Point A and Point B.
Now, whenever we want to get a coffee, we do it as fast and painless as possible. The experience of actually getting a coffee, sitting in a coffee shop, and enjoying the experience is long gone for so many of us.
The magic of life has slipped through our grasp. We’ve become blind to it, or worse, numb.
I don’t see this changing anytime soon. With talks of neuralink and metaverse ramping up, it’s only a matter of time until the “virtual world” becomes more important to most people than the physical world, if it isn’t already. As this new technology emerges, we will find ourselves moving from staring at a screen to living, quite literally, inside the screen, inside the virtual world that has already put so many of us under its trance.
It’s inevitable.
Yet, I remain hopeful, for myself and others. All of this—new technology, iPhones, the metaverse– are amazing tools, if used properly. There is immense potential for objective goodness, advancement, knowledge—you name it. But this technology can only serve as incredible tools if we use them as such, rather than allowing them to use us.
Every force creates an equal and opposite force.
As it becomes increasingly common to lose touch with the physical world, to lose sight of the magic that exists all around us, a revolution will unfold. Some people will wake up from the trance. They’ll come to appreciate the magic of life in a way that they only could when they were blind to it for so long.
Many of us will realize that going through normal, daily experiences, however dull, mundane, or boring we think they may be, actually isn’t so bad. We’ll realize how easily we can find happiness or a quiet satisfaction simply in these experiences.
We don’t need to always be entertained, informed, plugged in, or anything else.
We can simply just be.