Identification Through Electronic Devices

Dear Facebook Friends,

I have attributed to myself the capability of accomplishing multiple tasks at the same time. I am fairly certain that I am not alone in this belief as I see others walking or driving while looking at their phones or listening to podcasts or music. I find it particularly disorienting when walking by someone and erroneously thinking they are speaking to me, only to realize I’m simply hearing half of their mobile phone conversation. It can feel disheartening to pass a smiling child in a stroller – wide-eyed and cheerful, ready to greet the world – followed by a parent wearing earbuds which take them somewhere other than experiencing the moment of the smile and company of their child.

I am not asserting nor judging whether multitasking or using mobile devices is good or bad for us; but only that non-attentiveness or over indulgence in things increases the chances of falling asleep and missing the present. We can ask ourselves “Is an object governing me or is the Observer present and governing it.”

My Teacher explains that “To be extremely identified is to be extremely asleep.” The allurement of using electronic devices makes it much easier to illustrate what the Fourth Way means by the word “identification.” (See the glossary under the File tab for further clarification.) It is easy to spot and observe in oneself and in others, this peculiar identification of our age which consumes our energy. We feel naked without our electronic device and the use of it can become so dominant that an individual may eventually need counseling to help wean themselves from the identification and obsessive behavior.

One way to test whether we are identified or not is to observe what happens when the object of our identification is taken away or someone interrupts us. Often negativity results because we’ve lost ourselves in the identification and are disturbed to be interrupted. I chose the easy example of electronics for obvious reasons, but we can become lost internally in our emotions, ideas, sensations, attitudes, judgments etc., or externally in our jobs, money, sex, food, family, friends, material things – we can become identified with virtually anything. For all our concern about having our identity stolen, we have already given it away.

Disappearing into identification means we miss participating in and experiencing moments of our lives. We cannot be present when we are in a state of identification. It is both a blessing and a curse that identification is reliable and infinitely pervasive. If we use it as a reminder to wake up, we have found a reliable feature to struggle against. We can summon the Observer in order to witness this obstacle in ourselves and then bring presence to the moment. Our efforts to bring presence must outweigh the temptation of identification. It is a question of valuation.

An exercise to interrupt identification is to experiment with doing one thing at a time in presence. You might be surprised at the difficulty of this exercise and how much easier it is to evoke and sustain a higher state while doing one activity.

The Kiss, Francesco Hayez, 1859

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