One of my favorite bumper sticker quotes is: “Think, It’s Not Illegal Yet.” And a bumper sticker I’d really like to see displayed on cars around the area is: “Feel, It’s Not Going to Kill You.”
In western Mass, on Route 9 in Hadley — and probably in hundreds of cities across the U.S. — there’s a new virtual reality entertainment spot. VR is exciting; I know because my son has a headset and he showed me how to play Beat Saber. I loved it.
But it left me incredibly wired, and concerned. I’m not anti-VR, but I am aware of how badly driven we are toward distraction in order to rid ourselves of stress or anxiety. Researchers note that after playing VR, the brain may be even more prone to dissociation or alienation from actual reality. Other scientists studying the host of traumas society is dealing with agree that mindfulness and community building are the key to resilience and equanimity.
Interestingly, a most fascinating event took place last Saturday at Carnegie Hall in New York City — History-Talks.com, Leadership & Legacy, featuring Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and a host of global leaders. This feels like a truly pivotal moment of potential truth-telling, of aisle crossing, of divide bridging, and of healing the national consciousness.
For the perpetrator of fictional tales of weapons of mass destruction (President Bush) to speak to “The Future of America’s Great Experiment” (i.e. megalomanic American expansionism), one might think it could almost be safe to come out from behind their myriad screens of distraction. Let’s hope so. 2020 just might be the year we collectively steer the ship away from fiction and grandiose falsehoods and back toward the clear-sky stars of truth.
Karen Ribeiro
Pelham