Technology—Leading Away From Happiness

02/05/06

In the search for happiness, we have created another false God and made ourselves subservient to it once again!

   I was sitting at a café the other day with two of my co-workers talking about technology. The statement came up that it is a changing world and that computers are a must have item.

   I made the statement that computers in the home where a luxury and not a necessity. I also said that computers in business were necessary. These statements gave rise to rebuttal from my co-workers with statements of how we could not get along without them and why.

   I was reminded by these comments of how we have been caught up in the industrial revolution and the new technology. People are overly concerned about the importance of technology to survive.

How lost we have become, and it is no wonder we cannot find the happiness that we seek. There are those that would say that it is not even happiness that we desire anymore, but a compromise of happiness. Humans I am told don’t want to be happy but seek complacency in contentment. How sad that is on a conscious level that we have given up on being happy. Happiness I have been told can not be maintained and therefore it is more desirable to settle for something less. Although that may seem to be true consciously I believe that there is more than one kind of happiness. I also believe that happiness evolves and that it is simply a moment of awareness that leads us from one to another.

   Happiness is also a very powerful aphrodisiac and within our personal ability to accept the happiness that we now experience comes an opportunity to experience a higher level of happiness. Too much happiness at one time could be likened to drinking too much alcohol, it may lead to drunkenness. Too much at one time brings a difference experience than that which we desired at the time. Too much power given to an individual at one time will destroy him/her if not received within one’s maturity to use it positively.

   There are many successful businesses that I know of that do not have a computer, they do not have a fax machine. These businesses are successful because they fulfill a need for the consumer and do not rely directly on technology; word of mouth has made them successful. There are many homes that do not even have a television set or xbox.

   Technology flourishes because it is a virus a plague that only knows growth. Technology brings with it a craving for new technology and a demand for instant gratification, as in organic life, it seeks expression and immortality. Consumers are caught up in the frenzy and believe that they cannot be happy without the latest ‘thing.’

   It is observable that in the last one hundred years of technology that it has not brought any sustainable level of happiness. Consumers are spending longer hours directly and indirectly at work trying to keep up. A typical household now requires more than one wage earner to sustain it in the new technology. Technology leads us to the acquisition of it and not to happiness.

   One could argue that technology and the computer frees us up. But where is it that we are spending our time? We are glued to the computer screen when we are not out there trying to raise the money to feed it. It is a box in its own right, a very large black hole that absorbs our energy. The World Wide Web is a resource of information that is at best biased and opinionated. It does not give us the opportunity to witness or experience the world first hand but second handedly through the eyes of another.

   Information is power, but the value of the information should be critically examined and it is not bringing happiness or even awareness of the real world. The technology is about the cyber world and it is a different realm of reality.

   The promise of the industrial world was to free up time so that more could be used for leisure and personal interaction with others. Industry would bring more recreational time for all, with fewer working days and hours and more freedom. It has failed miserably.

   There are thriving groups of people that currently exist that could be labeled primitive by industrialized peoples. These tribes spend only two hours of each day sustaining life and the rest is spent in leisure. Yet it is the commercialized, industrialized peoples that claim a higher level of advancement. Technology and organic life are mutually exclusive and should not be embraced as one. They co-exist but technology leads away from organic life and demands absolute devotion to it by organic beings for sustenance. It is our energy that it uses to sustain itself, to propagate and expand.

   After all the arguments for technology have been brought forward, what we should have left is happiness. And this is not our reality.

   There is a fundamental issue with seeking happiness from technology; it simply cannot work. We as a world body of organic beings cannot find happiness in our machines and toys, it does not work for us that way and we have it all backwards.

   In order to experience happiness, we must have happiness as our root thought first, and then we seek to express it physically. Neither money nor our toys can bring happiness, but we can express our happiness through these things. Physical expressions are manifestations of an inward thought. We cannot use technology to bring us happiness, but we can express our happiness through technology. The problem with technology is it absorbs our thoughts and turns us away from thoughts of happiness to thoughts of compromise and settlement and focus on the machine.

   We can use our technology to drown ourselves in an illusion of happiness, but we can never feel it. We can be drunk on technology and not feel the high as an addict that keeps searching for the next great fix that never comes.

   This technology is an external choice and not a need. By bowing to technology and embracing it we have lost our focus. Humanity spends more time on technological development than personal development. It is an escape, and numbs the senses as we try to become more like machines that try to make machines more like humans.

   Although we use the term "find happiness," it is never found, it is expressed.

Technology is the beginning of the end for humanity and it has been demonstrated many times throughout our history. Technology is created by man and is brought about through profit. Profit is only realized when there is someone to buy the technology. So technology demands that there are lots of buyers. Therefore technology increases populations of buyers and suppliers. Buyers and suppliers use resources and resources are limited on this planet.

   Technology like anything else works for us when used in moderation or it becomes an addiction. Technology draws life from us and uses it to expand its existence. It sucks from us the very things that at one time were our only awareness, the need for shelter, food and the ability to express our happiness for being.

   Humanity can only express its happiness when it embraces happiness first. Technology can only be beneficial if not seen as a means to an end. For the same reason we cannot look to God for happiness or change, because the power for it already lies within us.

   Within our own limits to control technology, it either becomes a means to express our happiness or a means to destroy ourselves. We have created a false God, because we have given up on the old one because we have forgotten that it is within our selves to create all the circumstances of our lives. Humanity answers to no one, because there is no one else. We are the happiness that we seek and we are the God that we look for. We are that which created us seeking to express itself in this physical world. Technology and humanity are aspects of that creator, as is happiness. Happiness is a choice and doesn’t happen randomly or by chance. Seek to be happy first, then go out and express it physically.

Roy is a resident of British Columbia, Canada. An international published author, a student of NLP, spiritual philosopher, New Age Light Worker, Teacher and Phenomenologist. Roy's books and articles are thought provoking, and designed to empower your imagination. Review Roy's new book at: http://www.yourlifewasnevermeanttobeastruggle.com