It’s Hard To Hate Up Close…Thoughts On Technology and Isolation by Benjamin Pratt
It’s Hard To Hate Up Close… Thoughts On Technology and Isolation
by Benjamin Pratt
Benjamin Pratt: And I remember talking to somebody on a plane once and I think he’s the one that said to me “It’s real hard to hate up close but it’s real easy from afar.”
The best way to handle isolation is…don’t isolate yourself, you know? Get out of your office. Get out of the house. Interact with other people. You don’t have to run out and get married. But makes sure that you have those other things in your lives.
“The best way to handle isolation is…don’t isolate yourself, you know?”
It kind of goes back to what I said about obsessing about one thing. And so, join a gym but join a class (a class structure). For me I like to go boxing or I do this weight training class and the way the weight training class is set up, it’s about five of us. You are interacting with other people, you have to.
Technology is putting us in a position where we are not interacting with each other anymore and there’s a lot of negative things we’re seeing as a result. Just look at the political dialogue. We don’t treat people like humans anymore. And I remember talking to somebody on a plane once and I think he’s the one that said to me “It’s real hard to hate up close but it’s real easy from afar” when we’re not looking at each other as human beings. That partially happens because we’re obsessed with our own little worlds and technology is pushing us in that direction. We’re not having conversations anymore. We’re texting, we’re Tweeting, we’re arguing in the comment section on a Facebook post. It’s not healthy. We’re losing our ability to communicate with one another in this isolation, that pressure that builds up, it’s exploding and you see it in a variety of forms.
Whether or not it’s a school shooting or people turning the gun on themselves or going to their workplace and committing an act of violence.
There are so many unhealthy consequences from isolating yourself. So I think it’s important that you are cognizant of it and that you don’t obsess. But you (as the individual) have to take responsibility for it. Your friends can warn you (if you have any left) but if nobody’s there to warn you, you’re going to have to be self-aware and realize that you’ve gone off the edge because to me that is not living your dream. It’s when your dream becomes a nightmare and you don’t want to become one. So if you’re obsessing to that point, that’s not healthy. No amount of money or success is really worth going crazy and destroying your life over it. And I think that’s what can happen if you don’t pull yourself out of it and realize that there is a big world and that life is finite. There is only so much time you’ve got and there is a lot more to it than this product or this service or money or fame or whatever you’re pursuing. It’s important to enjoy all of life.
What are your thoughts on technology and isolation?
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