Fourth Form of Madness

A couple of months ago I brought an iPhone. I didn’t want one and kept resisting my husband’s pleas with me to buy one. I was comfortable on my soap box protesting how certain new forms of technology are making us more anti-social. I had watched the morning commuters never lift their heads from their phones barely acknowledging the person sitting next to them even when they moved to get off. Then I brought my iPhone and I joined those head down commuters into a world that is surprisingly social. Within 5 mins into my first train journey with it I was on youtube watching clips of surprised squirrels and sloths and laughing with every abdominal muscle and I never go on youtube! I felt more destressed and light than I had in ages.

It opened me up to iPhone scrabble which I now play with a few friends, who pretty much beat me even when I am using descrambler (a free app that advises what words you can play with your tiles). I know it borders on cheating but I have justified it’s use with my survival of the fittest clause (which Darwin never actually said though he is coined with the phase). Maybe I should just go back to relying on my own ability. See how much this device is teaching me about life.

I also download movie of the week, which sometimes develops into movies of the week and watch these on my train journey in. Nothing breaks a stress cycle better than simply hoping on the train, plugging into the old ipod and watching a movie and letting go of that harmful neural pathway you have locked your mind into. My recommendation this week is 127 hours. I met a wonderful random person on the train one journey home that had just been to see this film and he kept urging me to see it and saying what a wonderful philosophical film it was. I was smiling and nodding on the outside but thinking on the inside what the hell is philosophical about cutting your arm off whilst pinned under a rock. I couldn’t have been more wrong. See the film, they have managed to capture the essence of living and learning on film.

I discovered iTunes and went to download more yoga music which I am fond of listening to but instead gravitated towards the more classical and downloaded Canon in D. I love this piece of music. I find myself listening to it over and over and something in it just makes me melt away. I do house work to it, walk the dog to it and yes, have even started doing yoga to it. When I do yoga to this it is like my body just responds to the rhythm and flows freely with it as part of it. I think to me if life could be represented in sound, this would be how it sounds, Canon in D. The ups and downs, all the joys and all the sorrows are there in this piece together with a surrender, and an acceptance that this is the consciousness that we call life.

Now I’m off to play a word on scrabble that I have thought of by myself and to download some more surprised squirrel videos.