How much is too much?
Since the time I knew that while in Bhutan, I would not have an access to the internet, T.V and no hour long conversation with friends, I kept thinking if this is really going to be a vacation or am I expecting too much out of my kids and myself. The internet and T.V have become like the oxygen in daily life. I know after a day’s hard work how much I look forward to that cuppa all by myself while enjoying “SATC” rerun or making T.V a baby sitter for an hour or how much that little mindless googling or reading Facebook notifications work as a stress buster for the lesser mortals like me. And after the initial charm of mountains and rivers and awesome weather withers off, how would I keep them or for that matter my own self, interested?
Such thoughts and many more had me keep my fingers crossed for the days that I was truly looking forward to. So finally after the initial 3 days staying in a fine resort, we came to the place where we were supposed to stay for another two weeks and few days. It was like being in a country side; where People were not only growing their own vegetables but growing their own RICE too!! No 24X7 stores, no hustle bustle of the city, no honking, quiet and calm would be the words, infact whole place seemed to enter into night mode by 6 in the evening. The thorough rural feeling. While driving to this place, I kept thinking about an episode of “Sex and the city” where Carrie half heartedly goes with Aidan to his house in country. But contrary to her reactions, I was falling in love with it. I kind of knew, I might get bored with the whole rural backdrop in few days but strangely enough, that didn’t happen, not for two weeks at least. And the best part was that I was able to spend so much quality time with hubby dear and my two angel faced monsters J
That brings me to the question that I raised in the first sentence. How much is too much? I understand that this is a vacation and I might not feel the same way two months down the line but the point here is more than that. Haven’t we become victim of the technology that we created for making our life easier? I remember a dialogue from a movie ” Before Sunrise” and I couldn’t agree more..Here it is..
“You know what drives me crazy? It’s all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But, what good is saved time, if nobody uses it? If it just turns into more busy work. You never hear somebody say, “With the time I’ve saved by using my word processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out”. I mean, you never hear that” 🙂
Quite true isn’t it?
“You know what drives me crazy? It’s all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But, what good is saved time, if nobody uses it? If it just turns into more busy work. You never hear somebody say, “With the time I’ve saved by using my word processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out”. I mean, you never hear that” 🙂
Quite true isn’t it?
Isn’t the connectivity that we all claim has become so integral to our lives, has made it worse than what it was few years ago when without the cell phone, we didn’t feel like without a limb. To tell you guys the truth, I have never felt this liberated in the longest time and mind you, I was without these three absolute necessities ( T.V, internet, phone) of life.
Aarshia loved the attention and time that I was showering on her, without me being so hard pressed for time. In fact she learnt more words in these three weeks than she did in last 3 months. The walks by the river, the hand holding by the serpentine roads, the deep cliffs, the floating clouds outside of window and the every where present mountains have given her a whole new vocabulary. She now understands the mountains, the river, the clouds with as much ease as the I pad, phone or noodles. Which made me think it really critically? Are we truly giving our kids enough interactions and stimulations in terms of the time we spend with them? And it’s not just Aarshia, Aaryamann was equally enjoying the morning badminton and evening cricket with dad ( dad had no newspaper eitherJ)
Mama was adoring quality time with papa and happy about the fact that they were not having too many distractions or stupid things to worry about which were a staple of city life.
I know, we can’t have such life for life. We can’tjust pack our bags and shift to literal greener pastures or other less noisy places, however we can definitely try to bring that life to our living room once in a while where the exertion caused by keeping up with the whole world can be changed by trying to be a little less dependent on that magic phone or those educating ipad applications and try and survive few evenings without T.V, where we can do some “LEAP” time (leave everything and play) and it doesn’t mean playing on PS4 it means Playing hide and seek or treasure hunt or whatever where you are running around and catching up your breath every now and then . These thoughts initially may sound a little cliché and a work of an over rested and over vacationed mind… and there is no gun on your or my head. Let’s try and see if it works? If it doesn’t…we can always get back to the pads and pods. But if it does. The smiles on those faces would be totally worth your panting
So let’s take those tiny tots for a walk today,talk to them, hold hands and show them that there is a life outside a wi fi enabled house.
Take care
