Calling Pooh

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Two years ago Marc gave me a book entitled The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.  I never read it.  I put it on the bookshelf and forgot about it.  Yesterday, after he had noticed I had finished the current novel I had been reading, he brought me The Tao of Pooh and told me to read it.  I picked it up and looked at it critically.  It was a small book, not very long, and had some pictures.  I decided to read it to make him happy.

            I’m about halfway through the book right now and I don’t love it.  But something in the book has brought to the surface something that I have been thinking a lot about the past few years. 

            The Tao of Pooh describes Taoism and how the characters in Winnie the Pooh illustrate its main beliefs.  What stuck out to me was the chapter about Bisy Backsons.  Basically, they are people who are always running around with a million things to do, but never really enjoying any of it.  They are the people wasting time in efforts to save it.  Hence, they are us.  Modern society. 

            I remember one New Year’s Eve, when I was eighteen, where I went to six parties throughout the one night.  I was so afraid of missing something that I did everything.  I ran from party to party, never really enjoying any of them – because my eye was always on the clock on when I had to leave to go to the next location.  This is how my life has been pretty much ever since.

            Now that I’m older and settled and have a child, I don’t run from party to party.  I have no problem turning down a social invitation to stay home and relax.  Only relaxing never seems to be what I’m doing.  While watching television, if a commercial comes on, I grab my phone and look through Facebook feeds or play a game.  Neither of which, I enjoy, but I feel like I need to be doing something.  Even stopped at a red light, I sometimes will grab my cell phone to check the weather.  Really?  Shouldn’t I be able to look through the windshield to do that?

            One of the first things I do in the morning, is grab my cell and look through emails I’d received through the night.  All of which are garbage, and I know they will be, but somehow I feel compelled not to let them wait.  

            I first began to notice my cell phone obsession one day when I was sending a text message, about nothing particularly important when Arianna wanted to play with me.  “Mommy, no!”  she had said taking the phone out of my hands and replacing it with a doll.  “No phones.  Let’s play.”  It struck me as really heartbreaking.   And I wondered if my own mother was more consistently present when I was a child then I apparently was being.          

            Since then I’ve made an effort to leave my cell phone until Arianna is engaged in something else.  When I would be able to take stolen glances at it.  And up until today, I thought that this was okay.  But after reading the Bisy Backson chapter, I realized that’s not okay.  Not only do I need to be mentally and emotionally present at every given moment of my life for Arianna, but I also need to do it for myself.  

            Somehow cell phones and social networking, and even video games and television, have ruined enjoyment for us.  Now you can’t just have a night out with your friends, you need to photograph and upload every funny thing that happens.  Instead of merely enjoying a conversation you’re having with a child, you need to record it so you can enjoy it later.  You can’t even talk to your friends anymore, now everyone texts.  Even my mom texts.  And gossip?  What of that?  That’s not even fun anymore because everyone’s business is all over the internet there’s nothing to speculate on or be shocked over.  

            I will look at my phone fifty times a day for no reason whatsoever.  I will just merely look through it and read stuff I don’t care about at all.  Just because someone somewhere has given me the impression that I need to be connected to the outside world all the time and I need to know what everyone’s thought is at the exact moment they are having it.  

            And it’s bullshit.  And it’s stressful.  

            I remember driving up to Lancaster last year and having a really bizarre moment.  While driving I began to think of how beautiful the scenery was, how open and relaxing.  And all of the sudden, I was thinking nothing.  Nothing!!!  Do you know how bizarre it is to have your mind be relaxed and completely free of thought?  It was euphoric.  (The only other time I had felt such a thing was eating cheese fries from Burger Express with Adriene after one particularly busy night.  They were damn good.)

             I’m a firm believer of the idea that everything always works out.  Because it does.  So why do we spend so much time stressed out and running ourselves ragged?  And why the hell have we become slaves to cell phones?

            Cell phones didn’t become popular and affordable until I was seventeen, which is when I got one.  And social networking didn’t become popular until years after that.  I was raised with minimal television, toys without batteries, and sunshine.  If a boy wanted to talk to me – he had to call the house phone and hope a parent didn’t answer.  In high school, I would sit home waiting for the phone to ring.  And it was such a thrill when it did.  

            But that’s not what it’s like for kids today.  And it’s sad.  And something needs to be done for children to be able to reclaim their youth, without it being posted all over the internet.   Arianna isn’t yet three, so we have time to think of how to combat the social networking curse that she will surely be exposed to at some point.  And surely it can’t be too late for me?

            I see so many mothers at the park with their children looking at their cell phones the whole time.  Or handing their children a cell phone to play with during a particularly long line at the grocery store.  In fact, it’s so bad, I recently saw a child sitting in the back of a shopping cart in Target watching a movie on a portable DVD player while her mother shopped.  I was appalled.  That mother was teaching her child that she didn’t need to be present in the moment, that she didn’t need to be able to find pleasure in everyday experiences, and the worst part was that she was wasting a perfect opportunity to have fun with her daughter.  One of Arianna’s favorite things to do with me is go shopping.  We have so much together.  We look at everything that interests us, we smell all the soaps and perfumes, we try on hats and sunglasses… in fact, Arianna even helps me pick out clothes for me to try on.  (I must say she has some good taste too – she’s the one who made me try on the dress I wound up buying for my bridal shower.)

            I make sure that Arianna and I spend a lot of quality time together, and that I expose her to a lot of things.  But at some point, waiting on a line or in an elevator, I get an anxious feeling that I need to check my cell phone.  And that’s terrible.  And there have been plenty of times when I would put on a television show for her to watch so I could finish up some unimportant nonsense I was doing on the computer.   I don’t want to be that mom.  And I won’t be. 

            So here’s what I’m going to do.  For the next month, I’m going on cell phone and computer lockdown.  I’m deleting my social networking apps on my phone.  I’ll set aside two fifteen minutes slots throughout the day to respond to texts or emails or to check whatever it is I check so often online.  I’ll give myself an hour after Arianna goes to bed for whatever else.  I’ll answer calls though, as long as they’re from people I know, but try to keep them short.  Who knows?  Maybe after a month I’ll be released from Apple’s hold of me.

            Arianna is my motivation.  Arianna is always my motivation.  But I’m also doing this for myself, so I can stop being a Bisy Backson and start being a Pooh.