While driving to work the other day, I heard a newscast discussing the recent video of US Marines urinating on the bodies of fallen Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The announcer noted that the video had \u201cgone viral\u201d in the past day. In other words, people found it so interesting that word about it spread rapidly, like a virus. So, we have another new expression in our language courtesy of modern technology: viral videos.<\/p>\n
Personally, I don’t spend much time watching videos on the internet. I’d rather read an article or view a still picture. I have more control over the narrative with those versus watching \u201cdynamic imagery\u201d. I guess that’s why I don’t watch a lot of TV nor go to the movies very often. There is a difference in the balance of power between \u201cstill media\u201d and \u201cdynamic media\u201d, with videos, movies and TV shows having more control over what you take away from them. <\/p>\n
But many people get bored very quickly, and dynamic imagery usually stimulates the brain much more than a book or a long magazine article. Thus the historical human tendency towards \u201cvoyeurism\u201d, I guess.<\/p>\n
Now we have viral videos to help fight boredom, along with traffic jams near car accidents (so that people coming the other way can look at all the mangled metal and maybe catch a glimpse of human suffering too) and all the lurid stuff that purveyors of sexual pornography offer (and also violence pornography). I’m not saying that movies and videos and TV shows are bad; many are quite good and edifying and useful. I have a small DVD collection, admittedly. It’s a question of getting a balanced mental diet, and viral videos seem like the visual equivalent of junk food. The craving for both are brought on by boredom; boredom is the common issue here.<\/p>\n
Boredom is a negative feeling brought on by a lack of adequate mental stimulation. But what is \u201cadequate mental stimulation\u201d? This is not set by our biology, but by our own \u201cstate of mind\u201d. If that is so, then we should be able to control our susceptibility to boredom. As a Zen meditation practitioner, I believe that we can do this. Zen meditation can be extremely boring; just sitting there for half an hour or so, focusing on your breathing in and breathing out. Nothing more (well, in theory anyway). If you can learn to appreciate just being awake, just being aware that you are alive, then nothing will be boring. OK, well, almost nothing. <\/p>\n
But my bottom line here is that spiritual enlightenment is not some great peak experience. It is mostly just getting on with daily life, the stuff that bores most people. But getting on with life with a mind that does NOT find daily stuff boring. A mind that is taught to appreciate the gift of life and conscious being, a mind that doesn’t take this gift for granted. A mind that remembers, conscious life is not owed to us nor owned by us, so be thankful for every little glimmer of life that we do experience, no matter how repetitious or ordinary. It could come to an end at any time.<\/p>\n
Again, this is not to say that the spiritually enlightened should not be concerned with US troops urinating on the bodies of those they killed in battle. The spiritually enlightened should be VERY concerned about such unenlightened behavior (especially since they are helping to pay for it through their taxes). The story itself deserves to \u201cgo viral\u201d. But to need to watch every gory detail . . . that can be a virus on the soul, a very infectious and debilitating one. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While driving to work the other day, I heard a newscast discussing the recent video of US Marines urinating on the bodies of fallen Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The announcer noted that the video had \u201cgone viral\u201d in the past day. In other words, people found it so interesting that word about it spread rapidly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2551"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2553,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2551\/revisions\/2553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}