He felt extremely light-headed.
Not because he had used a stimulant. Not because he had absorbed a new piece of information, so ubiquitous as they now were. Not even because he had nothing to do, since there was always something to do, it was the age of flowing after all; a constant flowing stream of bits; which had permeated into our daily lives; metaphorically, right into a person’s core, so crucial as they were for well-being and stability. For the network seeks to harness the connectivity of us all for a greater good. With an equally merited harm in case of excess.
All of us flow. All of us are evolving.
Was this why he felt enlightened? No.
He had been listening to music. After a long time. After a few days. Bemused, as to the fact that he had allowed this to happen, he let the matter drop. What mattered was that he felt an incoming rush of goodness that only music could provide humankind. The song was perfect. Just tailored for the state of the mind that he had already been in, a sense of disengagement at hand, more than anything; like a head swimming with multiple parallel thoughts which in turn had led to more parallel thoughts, like a never-ending, infinite world developed to trap him inside forever.
To interact with his mind, the streaming application had sought to play Eyes of the Insane by Slayer proceeded by Iron Maiden’s 1982 epic, Hallowed Be Thy Name from the album Number of the Beast, before dwelling on Sepultura’s Refuse and Resist. The application’s choices had mentally charged him up, filling him up with a mixture of a healthy amount of adrenaline and dopamine, so much such that he decided to work-out for a bit to supercharge, before realizing that it was one in the morning and even though he felt he could, he should probably wait it out till seven in the morning.
It was the application’s fault. Instead of setting its filters to make sure it played only the kind of music that could put him into a healthy sleep, it had made the mistake of playing the uplifting, melodious and screaming energy-laden, riff-driven genre of heavy metal to mitigate his sense of disengagement. Now to come to think of it, he needed a master application which could detect his moods all the time and be armed to nudge him towards whatever activity he needed to perform to elevate his consciousness and be productive at the same time, with the caveat of being limited by budget of course, since he couldn’t exactly afford suggestions like a luxury cruise or travel to exotic places at a moment’s notice. He had things to do after all.
There was so much to do. He needed to impose filters. He needed to absorb the best information and ignore all the chaff from the wheat, a task not so easy since chaff was all the rage at the moment. They towered over us as if intent to frustrate all of us by convincing us the world was too complicated to understand and that we needed to give up and let others to do the burden of intellect. He didn’t agree with this approach at all. He wanted to understand everything, at least the fundamentals of multiple disciplines to form a coherent world view.
Choosing to exercise meant understanding the human body and nutrition. Choosing to read meant choosing between fiction or non-fiction among a plethora of authors and titles seeking to mould him personally or professionally. Choosing to spend time online meant choosing among videos, text, audios and images, on general sites like YouTube or other sites which focused on specific disciplines, or even massive open online courses, which was all the rage these days. Long live edX.
Choosing to spend constructive time meant choosing between a hobby like a music instrument, a public speaking class, a coding workshop, a weekend wellness boot camp, a singing session or all the other possible permutations and combinations which were possible, not to forget social occasions which presented opportunities to network, smoke, drink and ingest substances of all kinds. It was a world filled with vices, good or bad or everything in between. The only thing that could be stable was one’s own mind, which itself was influenced by the inputs one chose to put in it on a daily basis.
Choose your vice wisely.
Marijuana Maharaj 