URI:
   DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       David William Music
  HTML https://davidwilliammusic.createaforum.com
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       *****************************************************
   DIR Return to: The Journey
       *****************************************************
       #Post#: 13--------------------------------------------------
       The Call Of Nature
       By: davidwilliammusic Date: February 23, 2021, 9:32 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Up until the age of 9 you would always find me out playing, all
       day long.  I'd come home from school, throw my bag in, go
       straight out to play football in the local park with my friends,
       come home around 5pm, get my tea, and go out again for another
       few hours until it was bed-time.  During school holidays it
       would be the whole day.  If I wasn't playing football, or
       occasionally tennis, I was riding my bike around the city, going
       on adventures or climbing trees somewhere.  When the Olympics
       and Commonwealth Games were on we'd recreate the events somehow
       around us, using our imagination to create the track, trying to
       find things to use as a makeshift javelin, or using boulders for
       the shot put.  The only times you'd find me in was when there
       was extreme rain, wind or cold.  Then we'd play snooker, chess,
       listen to the radio, whatever...
       At 9 years old I got my first computer.  I didn't ask for it, I
       didn't even know about computers then, but they were becoming
       more popular and so I guess it spread around as the thing to get
       for your child.  My friends all got them around the same time as
       me.  It didn't have internet so you could only play games or
       learn programming in BASIC, the in-built computer language.  I
       enjoyed many of the games but I never got so into that like
       others around me.  I was more fascinated with the programming
       side of things, but I was never a tech-head, it was just I saw
       the potential for creativity there.  I imagined designing games,
       doing the graphics, but I soon realised I wasn't intellectual
       enough to actually do the programming.  So it was more the
       creative potential that attracted me than anything else.  During
       these years, between 9 and 13 years old, I still played outside
       a lot, although the computer did pull us in.  Looking back now,
       I can see this as a critical turning point in humanity.  As the
       years went on, from 13 years onwards, I watched how all my
       friends who had previously loved joining me casually playing
       football for hours in the park or going on adventures no longer
       seemed interested in that.  With the rise of cable TV, more and
       more they wanted to stay in for hours watching endless live
       football matches or golf or tennis tournaments.  With Eurosport
       and Sky Sports you could sit all day and just watch endless
       sport.  My friends sort of split into two at this point - the
       sports-mad ones who now no longer wanted to play sport so much
       but watch it and the computer-mad ones who were never into sport
       in the first place and who just wanted to stay in all day
       playing games or programming.  I didn't fit into either camp,
       although I could dip into each world for a bit of time.
       It was at this stage, around the age of 15, that I began feeling
       more and more lonely.  I could be surrounded by 5 or 6 friends
       and yet feel totally alone, as if I was on a different
       wavelength.  I was physically with them but not really with them
       any longer.  At that time I didn't understand what was going on
       in my life.
       Once we left school and started going out drinking to pubs and
       clubs, this sense of being isolated increased.  I could feel a
       distance was growing between us but I couldn't understand it.  I
       first noticed that I seemed to be 'invisible' to them - they
       wouldn't hear me when I tried to say something, my whole
       presence and being seemed to be slipping away from them or them
       slipping from me.  Years later I would understand this in terms
       of frequencies and energy.  I literally was moving out of their
       frequency range and them out of mine.  For a time we still
       physically appeared in the same reality but eventually that came
       to an end also.  It coincided with many crucial events in my
       life.  A so-called "mystery virus" I got during my time in my
       first job which led to me having to leave.  (I later discovered
       this was not a "mystery virus" at all but a spiritual shift, a
       kind of pre-awakening stage).  Somewhere in the middle of this I
       met Kate online.  I never intended to go online to meet people,
       I was always interested in making real life physical connections
       but various things lined up to steer it that way.  I had no
       money cos I wasn't working, my brother had just received a PC
       for Christmas (first computer we had with internet) and so being
       alone and isolated I soon discovered I could chat to people
       online from all over the world without leaving my house.  At
       first it seemed an amazing thing.  Around this time I used to
       wander through the crowds during the Edinburgh Festival soaking
       up the vibe and thinking how nice it was that all these
       different nationalities of people were together.  So to get the
       opportunity to chat with them online was quite exciting at
       first.
       Now, looking back, I see the signs were there of where we've
       ended up today.  Many of the people I chatted to back then were
       awkward, had a lot of issues and just weren't straight-forward.
       I too was shy and could get nervous but if you dealt with me
       straight on I would reciprocate it.  Kate stood out amongst this
       because she was the only person who was straight-forward and
       simple to deal with.  We connected instantly.  There was no
       sense of pretence, no difficulties in trying to communicate.
       Others would go so far with me then shut off so you couldn't get
       to know them, couldn't get close to them.
       Throughout all those years I always stayed close to Nature in
       one way or another, no matter what those around me were doing.
       I went up the local hills regularly or for walks in nature.  I
       even continued kicking a football off the wall on my own when I
       was 16 (and got abuse for it), so determined was I that even if
       all my friends were no longer interested, I wasn't going to
       allow them to kill my joy.  I always instinctively kept that
       connection, or it drew me back, no matter how much society and
       people around me were trying to pull me away, because I am also
       that!.  Nature is my Nature!  I didn't understand it then the
       way I do now, I just instinctively acted that way.
       Now I see and hear so many people talking as if they are
       spending their whole lives immersed in technology.  It is
       clearly what the system wants, the way it is taking society, the
       A.I. agenda and looking back, I can see where it was starting to
       creep in during my childhood in the 1980s.  In every area of
       life now you can see the coldness of it spreading and it
       becoming normal.  There's even many who seem to be loving it -
       loving replacing the real, physical world of nature with some
       A.I. fantasy land, somehow convincing themselves that sitting at
       their computer all day long and immersing themselves in an
       online world is no different to the physical world of trees,
       plants, rocks, water, sun, wind, etc...
       At this time I feel myself called more than ever to Nature,
       reminded of its beauty and wisdom.  It communicates to me that
       it has always been there - the trees were 'watching' me as a
       young boy playing in amongst them.  They remember.  They know I
       am one of them and that connection can never be broken.  I am
       not anti-technology at all.  It has brought wonderful things
       into our lives but if we're not aware it will bring horror too.
       It should be used as a tool to enhance our lives and be
       harmonious with the natural world, not to replace it.
       Some it seems, no matter how much you try to remind them, may
       have somehow disconnected themselves from that connection so
       that they cannot feel the beauty, power and splendour of Nature
       but there are many out there who just need a reminder.  To be
       nudged back into that Natural State.  I write this for those
       people who can hear and want to celebrate in it with me and find
       the human being again in humanity.
       * Originally posted on old forum 1st Dec 2020 *
       *****************************************************