Podcast Obsession

Lately I've been obsessed with listening to podcasts. Now, those who know me know that I have a tenuous at best relationship with technology. I was one of the last people on the planet to get a cell phone and was very resistant to getting an iPhone when they came into vogue. I must admit that now that I have the iPhone, I really appreciate its capabilities. There are a lot of things I don't like and I will address those further in this post. My husband turned me onto podcasts and I love them because they are akin to old school radio programs of the 40's: The pre-tv era. Anyone who knows me knows how much that era of time appeals to me so naturally I would love modern day radio programs aka podcasts. There is even one called "serial" I'm assuming based on the idea of the serial novel popularized in England  in the 1860s with Dickens's. "The Pickwick Papers." .  I had to wade through quite a few klunkers to get to the gems but it was worth it because the ones I found are really amazing. As a life long lover of learning (whoa...there is some serious alliteration in that sentence!), I love the idea of learning something new on my commute without having to read. Reading on a subway has always been hard for me - I get too easily distracted so having something to listen to has really made my commute enjoyable. I drink my coffee, I lean something about life and try not to dread the next 7 hours of my day going to a job that does nothing for me. But I digress. Well not really because the whole point of writing about my love of podcasts is that they are helping me cope with the struggle I'm having in my current job. I listened to a TED talk on the way home. These have become wildly popular and now I can see why. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and they are short talks given by prominent people from different fields and if you haven't t listened to one of these inspiring talks yet, you should. The one I listened to was about the seven deadly sins and how pervasive that ideology is in our society and culture. Each sin was spoken about by a different person who had a unique view of that particular sin. The one that struck me the most was the talk given about greed. Its really no wonder that was the one I was drawn to seeing as the last five years of my life have felt like a quest for money. Now that sounds like greed but when you consider that my lack of money has made me lose my home, my job, friends, my security, my confidence, my place in society, etc. I could keep going but you get the picture. Its not greed but a need to feel secure and safe and every single person on this planet deserves that. Even serial killers and mass murderers get a bed and meals in prison. There were days I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for food so yea that's not greed. The man that gave the talk was a multi-billionaire and instead of me instantly hating him, I related to him because he talked about how most billionaires have lucked into much of their wealth - yes they worked hard but they were in the right place at the right time for many of the deals that made them the most money to go through. No one who is in the 1% of society has that kind of money on pure work ethic. Its impossible. There has to be a degree of luck, connections made with other wealthy people, born into the right circumstances, etc. There are a lot of reasons why people get rich but I don't believe that its just based on how hard they worked. If everyone who worked really hard was rewarded accordingly, we would be 90% wealthy and 1% poor. Wouldn't that be a flip in the script and an awesome one at that? Anyway, this man also talked about how never in the history of the world has there been a successful society where there is such a large disparity between the rich and the poor as we have now. He said that soon there will be an uprising. There will be rebellion because people are tired of being held down. I feel like I could lead that rebellion myself. Having worked in 2 places now where the clientele is wealthy and I'm getting paid close to minimum wage, I feel my tolerance level waning with every passing moment I sit at the desk in my job. I am growing restless and intolerant yet I am also awakening to new ideas and it feels like light bulbs are going off in my head every second which is the only thing keeping me from all out rebelling.
The other podcast I listened to this week that was eye opening is called, "The one you feed." The idea behind the title is that we get energy from the things we feed most in our life so if we are always negative and giving off negative vibes, we will continue to attract negative people and circumstances in our lives. Consequently, the same goes for joy and abundance. The topic of the particular podcast I was listening to was about technology and how to stay "human" in this digital age. It was fascinating because the woman talked about how there is so much information now available to us that we are constantly having to make decisions about which information we take in and we have become so over saturated that our brains are shutting down. Our brains simply can't hold all the information that is our there. Even things that bring us joy and relaxation require us to make a decision. When I was a kid, we had 5 stations on TV. If there was nothing on to watch, you grabbed a book and that was that. Now, we have thousands of TV stations, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Crackle, etc. If we don't want to watch anything there, we can turn to kindles or the nook to find a book amongst the hundreds of thousands of titles and if we still aren't satisfied we can pick up our phone and find a game to play or an app to download or a podcast to listen to and there are thousands of selections there to. It is way too much and I realize that I have started becoming paralyzed by having to make decisions all day that when faced with a major one; a truly important life changing decision, I can't do it. I don't trust myself. I feel lost; stuck. I don't think this is a good development for society. In fact, it truly frightens me. I have been thinking for some time now that technology could ruin us as a society and the inklings of it are all around. We have all become so tense and stressed and I truly believe it is because we are faced with a whole load of minuscule decisions all day. We never power down from it. I know that often times if I don't check my phone for a while, I panic that I may have missed something. What could I possibly be missing? The answer is both I don't know and nothing. But somehow all of this available information has got me convinced I'm missing out on some big important life changing event. How crazy is that? I have no answers to how to rectify this in my life yet. I mean obviously shutting down my phone for a while and getting rid of facebook would certainly go a long way in helping the situation but will it be enough? Truly unplugging is going to take a lot more effort and I will let you know if I get there.