Disconnecting To Connect

What is missing here? The present gallops by with noses pointed at tiny screens. The wonders of life are missed. Stress crushes the soul. Is this living, or merely existing?

Normandy France, 1985. I am sat at a massive oak table in an ancient chateau’s dining hall. Across from me is Jaques. We are sipping a 100 year old Calvados made in a previous century by the family of this small, wise man. It is 3 a.m. We are talking the night away in part French/part English. In this early December morning I was told a truth I have never forgotten.

Jacques said, “The Norman people have something Americans seem to have lost: time.”

He was saying, take the time to live: "Prenez le temps de vivre."

When you have a chance to head deep into the desert out West, that is exactly what you are doing - living in the moment. Wrapping yourself in millions of years geologic wonder. Exposing yourself to the signs of those who came before us.

However, I fear this type of time taking is slipping away in the over-connected world.

I have taken people deep into the open spaces of Southern Utah and seen them freak out when the cell signal disappears.

I reassure them, “You’ll live. The whole point is to find no signal at all. Breathe. Look. Listen. Smell.”

That's when you begin to come out of it. You suddenly see what surrounds you. You feel the wind. The sun cascades in waves between cloud shadows off thousand-foot canyon walls.

Are you alone? Hardly.

You are alive in the hall of the desert, surrounded by the vast scope and minute intimacy of everything within range of your senses. 

Before the dawn of the new digital age the pressure to be always connected did not exist. 

It's time to learn to disconnect and start understanding the past in order to inform your future. 

Get out here.