The Internet versus “real life”

I often think about all the reading, learning, entertainment, and social awakening the Internet has brought me, this past year particularly with the pandemic, but every other year, too. The Internet, for better or worse, has become my life’s anchor. I never see anybody but my brother and his girl friend once a week, so being online is my connection to the world of other people. Nature is my connection to the spiritual realms of existence.

At my age, I can’t imagine too much change. When the pandemic eases and I move into my new, much smaller place, I have a feeling I’ll want to get on the road and see some of my good friends in other states. That’s the problem — they live far away. I don’t have any friends here that I have anything in common with.

It’s very true one may not “remember” anything too specific about the tons of stuff we read on the Internet, but I will continue my daily reading habits because what I read and learn in the moment is so fascinating and worth knowing. For the majority of my life there was no Internet, so it changed everything for me, literally. I don’t want to even contemplate what my life would have been without it.

Like most of us, I seem to be always searching for some elixir of life, the pure essence of being, experienced in the present, and the hoped for contentment this brings. Many of us, myself included, depend on having constant stimuli. This, of course, can be a big impediment to enlightenment and the simple life, but basically,  I think only a very few precepts are simple. Yet it’s those that really hold the key to happiness, or, one might even call it enlightenment.

If the Internet is the tool that enables me to discover more of  the vital spiritual truths I seek, then it becomes as necessary to life as air and water.  This is not something I say lightly.  For me the Internet, with all its perils, promise and benefits, has helped me transcend what might have been a very lonely life.