Plugged in

Everywhere you go, they are there. Everyone everywhere is bopping along to their sound of their own beat. The sales of ipods and  mp3 players have skyrocketed to unprecedented highs. It always strikes me as strange when i walk down the street and i see 90% of people plugged in. When did it become normal to have wires sticking out of you? This general phenomena of "being plugged in" is a bit worrying. Except for the 25 hour intermission of Shabbat, most of us have plugged ourselves in and we no longer hear the birds chirping, don't hear the cars honking and usually don't hear the people around us talking.

Which is why so many people decide to plug in; they are looking for an escape. They want to tune out (literally) everything around them and curl up into their own world. It is a method of coping. A way of dealing. I don't want to deal with x,y and z so I will just ignore it and maybe it will go away. I do not want to hear what she has to say so maybe she'll get the hint when i stick my headphones in my ears. The oldest trick in the book on the plane when you have absolutely no interest in getting involved with your seatmate is to sit down and promptly stick those ear buds in and close your eyes giving the very distinct message that you are not a social bird and have no intention of interacting with anyone or anything for that matter.

in lieu of the current holiday of chanuka, i was thinking about how this fits in with the Jewish concept of coping and what the Greek influence is. ( We live in society that is steeped in the Greek culture. We still are surrounded by the need for the perfection of the human body. The presence of competition, trying to best one another has never been stronger. We are very much still in this galut. )

I think we have to be wary of precisely what it is that we are plugging ourselves into. What is our source of comfort? Where do we turn to escape?

The need to escape is very real and i believe that it does have a time and place. The question really is-do we live in a constant state of escapism or are we really interacting with the world and on occasion as needed we take a time out to read a book, have an amazing cuppa or listen to that amazing song that never fails to move you.

In halacha there is room for grieving. G-d understands that we are human and we have emotions. As much as we would like to think ourselves invincible and strictly rational there are moments (much to our dismay) we give in to the emotion and all reason seems to abandon us. We are given methods to cope, we are told to experience the pain, feel the loss and take the time to give homage to that which was so dear to us. But there is a time limit, there is a stopping point. We do not have the luxury of living in the pain, for that is debilitating. We are never allowed to fall to despair. Sadness, yes for we are human and we do feel..despair-never. For despair indicates that we have lost all hope, it indicates a lack of belief in a Creator who only does good.

So yes, if you feel compelled to plug in once in a while, go ahead and take the time to escape, to feel the emotions that you are experiencing. Yet, we have to make sure that this doesn't become the rule rather the exception.

(on a completely side point, we have to make sure that what we are plugging into is conducive to spiritual growth and conducive to getting back to reality rather than just sucking us in deeper into the escape.What we listen to really does affect us and does ultimately shape us. We hope that we are shaping ourselves into children Hashem will be proud of rather than allowing the Greeks of so many years ago continue to reign over us at our weakest moments.)