It’s strange. How we plug the
little gaps in our
lives. Whether we be on the bus to work, taking a leisurely jog around the
park, or just relaxing at home, these are the moments when we may take a quiet moment to reflect on our
lives and where we want them to lead. But it seems that a lot of people don’t. Everywhere I go I see heads hooked up to MP3s, iPods, hand-held video-games and mobile phones, completely unaware of the world around them as they zombie through life, drooling as they melt away brain cells, frazzle corneas and grunt when another life form gets too close. Because God forbid that their brain be turned on for more than a couple of seconds and they are in the real world. Are people so afraid of absolute consciousness that they fill up these precious
little moments with an infinite arcade of mind numbing media? All to experience that magical affinity known as blissful ignorance?
Believe it or not I am all for escapism. Sometimes you have to take a break from your worries be it in a film, some music, a book etc but escapism can only go so far before it is just plain running away. We all have our own lives and our own worries, some more stressful than others, and circumventing the problem is all too easy to do. But it certainly isn’t healthy. The intervals in our life allow a brief moment to contemplate things, whether they be big or small, bunging them up with those 2x2 inch pixelated match box games will only cause thoughts to stagnate or fall out of our gaping mouths. So that present you were to mull over for your dad’s 40th birthday, becomes a £5 note in an uninspired card from the Spar. Or that essay to be handed in on Wednesday becomes a last minute midnight rush of jibberish, and that girl you have a crush on is gone, to someone who took the time to do something about it. Trust me I’ve been there. When you ignore the things that matter because it’s easier to drone and indulge in a dream world. All the while that little muse in the tumult of your mind decays and rots, until is mutates into a green monster that sets about chewing up the rest of your brain.
This ‘Fear of Thinking’ can become a much larger problem if the strain is allowed to mount. Phronemophobia and Fear of Thinking affects many people, resulting in common symptoms such as panic attacks, nausea, sweating and an overall feeling of dread. I’m sure that we have all had such symptoms at one point in our lives. The full-blown condition can take years of therapy to cure and is indeed a terrifying possibility if you don’t deal with your issues bravely and quickly. It all comes down to a question of fear. The fear and evasion of tackling issues head on (even though you know you’ll have to deal with them eventually) in hope that by procrastinating in music and games that the solution will just present itself or something else will come up to make it go away. Hope is an exquisite thing. Living in hope is all too dangerous. So as the world continues to churn out ever more advanced technology, exploring new ways to fill each waking second with some form of junk entertainment to clog up our lives. Just remember the important things in your life that need considering. The valuable things that need the unbridled attention you are giving to those things in your ears, or that game of Tetris, or that vocabulary retarding method known as ‘texting’. A few moments of silence each day in the gaps between is all it takes to sort things out in your head. So don’t fill them all with things that will only dilapidate your mind.