1: CONSIDERING YOUR BED IN ALL ITS POSSIBILITIES
Everyone knows what a bed is for. Sleeping. Oh yes, and sex. But have you considered it in all its startling peripheral possibilities...?
Whether you're aware of it or not, your bed is actually better than your gym. Workouts are fine for they tone and toughen the anatomy; but it's in your bed where the anatomical parts are being refurbished with every minute of restful sleep. From the molecules and genes right up to the heart and brain. It's why the most dangerous deprivation is not food or water, but sleep.
Along with the physical there's also the emotional. Jangled nerves and jostled feelings from a cruel world can be tucked into your comfortable bed at night. Here, the blessings of solitude and sleep become the great elixir. By most mornings you're ready to -- if not take on the world -- at least give it one more chance.
A third gift is the gift of dreams. True, psychiatrists still debate the causes and meanings of our dreams, but most agree these coded, nocturnal mysteries are necessary itineraries for our psychic health. Then as you become more adept at traveling these mysteries, you can learn to recall and relate to them in your most reflective waking hours. No, not a substitute for therapy, but it is cheaper.
Finally the ultimate use for your bed -- prayer. For those finally humbled enough to have learned that creatures in some way must come from a creator, praying in your bed at night can be a remarkably productive disposition. It doesn't take a lot of memorizing, just a little practice.
Oh, and there is one postscript to the study of sleepability: Diet! Yes, when confronting the dragons of diet in your life, close the refrigerator, turn off the lights, and go to your bed...!
2. TECHNOLOGY'S UNCERTAIN SYNERGY IN OUR LIVES
[Invited to enter the Washington Post's "America's Next Great Pundit" Contest, I sent them this]
Call it the through-line connecting the dots. Call it the back-story to today's headlines. Or simply call it for what it is, the force driving most of today's new.
Technology...!
With 90% of all the scientists who ever lived living today, we are gorged with promising new technologies. But, unlike the technologies themselves are not the core story. Rather, it's the way each of them helps both explain and complicate the great issues of our time. Whether these be health, energy and education reform; or matters of warfare, democracy and philosophy. By its very inexorability, technology gives shape, purpose, and challenge to each of these.
So while this synergy of technology is relentlessly released from history's Aladdin's Lamp, a Genie also appears, demanding we learn how to co-exist with these wonders. Consider....
In health care -- we know the rich rewards from medical technology; but the question looms, will the benefits of impersonal technology come at the cost of personal care? With energy -- the newest and greenest technologies hand our economy enormous opportunities, while at the same time the other hand yanks the stability of traditional careers and jobs. As for education -- today our students have the omnipotence of an information-accessibility ancient emperors would have raped entire nations for; and yet, teacher and student must now work to distinguish between information and knowledge. Between faster data and perhaps poorer decisions. Then also consider....
In war -- our technologies have forever altered the face of combat, but ironically not the need. As for our democratic system -- the exponential explosion of Cable and the Internet has made voters more functional at the same more manipulable. As for our 5000 year Judaic-Christian philosophies -- they have been whip-lashed by modern technologies capable (and willing) to challenge the veracity of these ancient truths.
What then is the meaning to this contest between the progress and problems of technology? Perhaps this. Technology is one of the great gifts from the mind of man, but as with all great gifts, it requires of its recipients a measured appreciation. Otherwise, gifts become mere baubles in our hands. And the Lamp sheds more darkness than light in our path.
And now what's this...? Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell envisions electronic devices that will record everything we do during a day for our instant recall. Does this mean technologies that now make it impossible for me to forget those things better forgotten? Without this human talent, I fear I may become less human and more machine. Is this then the point at which my better angels pull the plug on my technology....?
Everyone knows what a bed is for. Sleeping. Oh yes, and sex. But have you considered it in all its startling peripheral possibilities...?
Whether you're aware of it or not, your bed is actually better than your gym. Workouts are fine for they tone and toughen the anatomy; but it's in your bed where the anatomical parts are being refurbished with every minute of restful sleep. From the molecules and genes right up to the heart and brain. It's why the most dangerous deprivation is not food or water, but sleep.
Along with the physical there's also the emotional. Jangled nerves and jostled feelings from a cruel world can be tucked into your comfortable bed at night. Here, the blessings of solitude and sleep become the great elixir. By most mornings you're ready to -- if not take on the world -- at least give it one more chance.
A third gift is the gift of dreams. True, psychiatrists still debate the causes and meanings of our dreams, but most agree these coded, nocturnal mysteries are necessary itineraries for our psychic health. Then as you become more adept at traveling these mysteries, you can learn to recall and relate to them in your most reflective waking hours. No, not a substitute for therapy, but it is cheaper.
Finally the ultimate use for your bed -- prayer. For those finally humbled enough to have learned that creatures in some way must come from a creator, praying in your bed at night can be a remarkably productive disposition. It doesn't take a lot of memorizing, just a little practice.
Oh, and there is one postscript to the study of sleepability: Diet! Yes, when confronting the dragons of diet in your life, close the refrigerator, turn off the lights, and go to your bed...!
2. TECHNOLOGY'S UNCERTAIN SYNERGY IN OUR LIVES
[Invited to enter the Washington Post's "America's Next Great Pundit" Contest, I sent them this]
Call it the through-line connecting the dots. Call it the back-story to today's headlines. Or simply call it for what it is, the force driving most of today's new.
Technology...!
With 90% of all the scientists who ever lived living today, we are gorged with promising new technologies. But, unlike the technologies themselves are not the core story. Rather, it's the way each of them helps both explain and complicate the great issues of our time. Whether these be health, energy and education reform; or matters of warfare, democracy and philosophy. By its very inexorability, technology gives shape, purpose, and challenge to each of these.
So while this synergy of technology is relentlessly released from history's Aladdin's Lamp, a Genie also appears, demanding we learn how to co-exist with these wonders. Consider....
In health care -- we know the rich rewards from medical technology; but the question looms, will the benefits of impersonal technology come at the cost of personal care? With energy -- the newest and greenest technologies hand our economy enormous opportunities, while at the same time the other hand yanks the stability of traditional careers and jobs. As for education -- today our students have the omnipotence of an information-accessibility ancient emperors would have raped entire nations for; and yet, teacher and student must now work to distinguish between information and knowledge. Between faster data and perhaps poorer decisions. Then also consider....
In war -- our technologies have forever altered the face of combat, but ironically not the need. As for our democratic system -- the exponential explosion of Cable and the Internet has made voters more functional at the same more manipulable. As for our 5000 year Judaic-Christian philosophies -- they have been whip-lashed by modern technologies capable (and willing) to challenge the veracity of these ancient truths.
What then is the meaning to this contest between the progress and problems of technology? Perhaps this. Technology is one of the great gifts from the mind of man, but as with all great gifts, it requires of its recipients a measured appreciation. Otherwise, gifts become mere baubles in our hands. And the Lamp sheds more darkness than light in our path.
And now what's this...? Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell envisions electronic devices that will record everything we do during a day for our instant recall. Does this mean technologies that now make it impossible for me to forget those things better forgotten? Without this human talent, I fear I may become less human and more machine. Is this then the point at which my better angels pull the plug on my technology....?
Now I don't know which I love more -- my bed or my computer! I think my bed, as you explained
ReplyDeleteI never really realized how much can "occur" in your bed other than just "sleep". No wonder everyone can't wait to curl up and crawl under the covers after a long day. I think it's also a safe haven.
ReplyDeleteAs far as your piece on technology, no truer words were written (or more eloquent) than when you wrote:
"Technology is one of the great gifts from the mind of man, but as with all great gifts, it requires of its recipients a measured appreciation. Otherwise, gifts become mere baubles in our hands. And the Lamp sheds more darkness than light in our path."
Scary how some paths have already become so dark!
And the funny thing about the darkness is that sometimes we're too busy to notice it. The good life is more than accumulating baubles. We all learn this...but sometimes some later than others
ReplyDelete