I am rarely cynical in my blogs, In fact, I have been called a Pollyanna optimist many times. I also am truly blessed with the most incredible friends on the plane but if you have read my blog you know that. I say all this before I share a cynical story about a wonderful. I know it doesn't take me off the hook, but it does give the story a bit of build up..
So I am out with a friend for lunch the other day. A friend I have not seen for month I might add and five minutes after we sit down for lunch she is checking her Blackberry for messages from the guy friend she just had her real lunch with. ( She apologizes for eating ahead of our lunch she said she would have dessert with me. ) She continued to check her blackberry throughout lunch. I love my friend very much she is an amazing woman, but she is so brilliant her mind needs to be occupied at all times. So she often goes into what I call the techno haze. For me the unspoken subtext of checking text messages in front of friends is: "Somewhere else there is someone who I care about more than you. I want to know what they have to say more than what you have to say to me now." The idea of being present in the moment is disappearing faster than you can say, "Hey, I've got to take this call..." We stop being in the moment. We stop being present wit each other. We devalue our current situation, the friends and family around us, our surroundings and setting, for something going on somewhere else. Somewhere that seems far more interesting that what is right their in front of them.
I see it when I go into speak to an audience now and it makes me crazy. Audience's use to talk and interact with each other before the program started. I am not sure, but I think that is why people have meetings and conventions so people can share ideas and experiences, with the people in the room. Now everyone heads are down. People don't have their hearts open they have their laptops open. They don't shake hands they do hip checks of the blackberry's. They don't lean into their seat mate to say hello, they pull out their cell phone to take a call. They are not connecting to the people in the room they are somewhere else. Certainly they don't look like they are in that room to learn. I am so glad that I teach what I do the way I do. I have my audience's up out of their chairs right away, now I realize that if they have any gadgets they would fall off in the first audience interaction exercise. What do you think about the techno haze?
