Being Mindful

Mindfulness is hard to explain so I won't try to, Google is your friend. Basically though its the act of connected with your outside environment with all of your senses as opposed to being introspective where we are cut off from the world around us and resident in our own mind, thinking. It is easy to see therefore why its a practice encouraged in the treatment of anxiety (more so depression) as anxiety and panic reside in the mind. That is not where the symptoms exist on the whole but its where the reaction occurs which is panic and where panic is maintained. Its why mindfulness can be very important. As part of the CBT course I am doing Mindfulness is very much a part of that- more an additional tool to dealing with panic.

Anyway as I have attempted to become more mindful I am starting to see the world is becoming more mindless and wonder if the majority will one day fall into the same trap as I find myself in. Its everywhere. Phones and tablets and now watches. It seems everywhere you look people are escaping into the alternative electronic reality of cyber communication.

I was walking through the park which is usually filled with the same noises and same scenes. The birds, of which there are plenty, make a hell of a noise. Blackbirds (or crows- I am no ornothologist) and gulls solely. The only other noise comes from the kids in the skate park. Not this day though. All other sound was drowned to a whimper by the banshee wailing of a child I found to be far up the hill coming my way in a pram. It was awful. I thought the child may be in distress. I really could not wait to be free of it but first I had to pass it. And so as I headed up the hill the pram came down to meet me. It was strange though. Not coming straight for me but zig-zagging all over the place. A drunk. Surely a drunk. A drunk pushing a child through the park. It was not- or at least that was not the cause. It was a woman in her 50s (I think as I am as good at determining ages as I am at identifying species of bird) with her head down shoving the pram with one hand and texting on her mobile in the other hand oblivious to the child's screaming- most likely her grandson. So I stopped. I felt compelled to say something but the words fell short. She was oblivious. She passed without knowing there was something there standing staring at her and as I left the park the sound of the child crying grew more and more distant until it was gone.

I remember sitting in the corridor of the Sports Centre on a bench waiting for my son who was playing football in the games hall and there was a young woman sitting next to me. Not that she knew I was there. She had her face buried in her phone and I could have been dancing in a Tutu to Gangnam Style in my head and she would not have noticed. Her son was running up and down the corridor entertaining himself. Then he came up and pulled at her sleeve telling her he had done something. There was a mutter, a nod and a dismissive shove of the hand as she returned to her phone. Sad.

Its not for all but its pretty much common place now. People despite the warnings still sit playing with their phone while they are driving as if they cannot go a journey without keeping up to date. Its dangerous. I know first hand as on more than one ocassion I have been nearly knocked down at traffic lights as a result of people being too focused on their phone to notice a red light. Its scary actually and its not going to get better any time soon. I wonder just how much of the world travels through the day on autopilot and lies down at night unable to recall anything outside of the cybersphere from their day.

In many ways I feel I am getting a leg up. I feel I am getting ahead of the game. I am taking myelf out of myself and trying to plant my feet firmly in the world while the shadows of people who once inhabited bodies fall into the background wired into an artificial universe. Its a little empowering in a way. Maybe helps me feel less paranoid. Its a bit of a case of I can fall and the world will keep looking away.

Or maybe not. Maybe I am getting too cynical. Or maybe not.