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Character Floss

We have to come back to the moment. We have to recapture the fragments.

There’s endless distraction, busyness, pursuit and superficial passion, but there’s little substance, or glue, and we let the game define the rules.

We’ve become dependent on rather ineffective, clunky, mind-numbing technology, happily paying exorbitant sums for this month’s model, pretending that our lives aren’t utterly at the whim of electricity and fucking fossil fuels. No charge, no signal, no . . . connection?

When is the last time you talked to someone? And not just to complain . . . And when did you last really listen, not just to hear? We’d sooner post our gripes and concerns and bowel movements on social media, a medium of wanton impotence and dissonant slurry, while a heartful tête-à-tête is replaced with yeah, huh, assorted grunts and totallys — or we default to talking endlessly about endless nothings.

Text messaging gives us a moment’s pause — or a few hours if we see fit — to collect our thoughts, but by unintentional design, it engages all sorts of filtering and miscommunication. It’s another cheat in a world of innumerable cheats, hacks, editing and rewrites. We can’t hold space for someone via cell phone towers.

We have lost the will to speak, with our full voice, with our authentic self, with resonance —and we don’t listen, not for more than a few seconds, not with any presence. We might pick up on keywords and hashtags, but that’s it. Wouldn’t it be handy to scroll past a few pages and get to the point? Or, maybe better to save the link for later when we give a shit . . . Don’t be an asshole. Be here, now.

How is it that a toddler can throw out repeated i-love-yous, smiling, exploding, unabashedly, but we crumble and cower into a heap of nerves, anxiety, terror and defer to diluted pleasantries?

Ooh, funny cat picture.

Our throats, chests, lungs and power centers are choked, tense, and blocked. Notice your shoulders regularly touching your earlobes? That ain’t healthy.

Our skin has grown increasingly thin, and our egos have exploded to astronomical proportions. We adopt any number of phobias, addictions and neuroses to compensate. There’s no time to heal, and there’s no one to trust.

It’s important we find and reconnect to our music. Our harmony. There is no choir, nor chorus, of one. We start by reconnecting to ourselves, for we cannot explore the vulnerabilities in a vacuum. We all hurt. We all love.

We all learned to walk, and we all learn while walking.

Solvitur ambulando