Some tips for a happy festive season

1. Get some peace and quiet!
   For countless generations the ambient noise was rain and wind and people talking. Now the soundtrack is full-spectrum, un-decodable. From the dull roar of rush-hour traffic to the drone of your fridge and the buzz of your monitor, various kinds of noise (blue, white, pink, black) are continuously seeping into our brains. And the volume is constantly being cranked up. Two, perhaps three generations have already become stimulation-addicted. Can't work without background music. Can't jog without earphones. Can't sleep without an iPhone tucked under the pillow. The essence of our postmodern age may be found in this kind of incessant brain buzz. Trying to make sense of the world above the din is like living next to a freeway - you get used to it, but at a severely diminished level of mindfulness and well-being.
   Quiet feels foreign now, but quiet could be just what we need. Silence may be to a healthy mind what clean air and water are to a healthy body. In a cleaner, quieter mental environment, we may find our mood calming and depression lifting.

2. Ignore the messages!
   From the moment your radio alarm sounds in the morning to the wee hours of late-night TV, micro-jolts of commercial pollution flow into your brain at the rate of about 3,000 marketing messages per day. Every day, an estimated 12 billion display ads, three million radio commercials, more than 200,000 TV commercials and an unknown number of online ads and spam emails are dumped into our collective unconscious. Corporate advertising is the single largest psychological experiment ever carried out on the human race. Yet, its impact on us remains unstudied and largely unknown.

3. Unplug!
   For many of us, what began as an exhilarating romp has become a daily compulsion. Our smart phones, netbooks and computers now keep us constantly online. While waiting in line at the supermarket or enjoying an evening walk or reading a book or even sitting at a concert, we keep texting our friends and receiving quick Twitter updates. We are drowning in an endless stream of connectivity. And future generations may be even more wired. A Pew Research Center study found that American teenagers send 50 or more text messages a day and one-third send more than 100 a day. Another study by the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that American children between the ages of 8 and 18 spend an average of 71/2 hours a day using some sort of electronic device.
   
   Our online lives may now be impairing our ability to follow a sustained line of thought, to think deeply about something and maybe even to reach "the heights of ecstasy and the depths of tragedy" in our creative lives. We may be suffering from the infodisease that Nicholas Carr first diagnosed in himself. "Over the past few years," he writes, "I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory... what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

4. Realise the joy in your life!
   Your children. Your partner. Your brother, sister, parents, grandparents. Your pets, plants, parish, planet.....whatever connects you to other living things. Whatever connects you to the natural, energy giving, love filling aspects of life. Revel in the beauty of being with those you love!

Have a very merry Festive Season!

With thanks to Kalle Lasn and Micah White of Adbusters, for their inspiring words!

Christmas Thoughts