IS IT REAL OR AB? – The Perils of Artificial Beauty

I’m noticing more and more symptoms of a troubling affliction spreading through our communication with one another—starting with the easy-come, easy-go milieu of social media.

I’m not talking about this chilling, cyber-war-style artificial intelligence that purports to catch one’s opponent lunching with Charles Manson or calling for the mercy killing of old folks. No, it’s a much subtler, more benign threat, but one not to be taken lightly—especially by this blogger, a guy who lives for small wonders.

I call this creeping blight artificial beauty (AB).

It could be the image of some amazing creature or landscape. Perhaps it’s the striking face or figure of a person from another culture. Or a dreamy, lavishly decorated room or dwelling.

The colors are over-saturated, the textures just a bit too intentional, the composition posed in a way that doesn’t quite look natural. Things that in the real world are beautiful in their imperfection are rendered perfectly. A flower, bird or butterfly that’s just over-the-top ornate; a woman’s face whose skin looks like it was grafted from the face of a toddler; maybe a surface that’s supposed to look weathered that’s just too perfectly weathered.

        At least with the romance   
        novel you know it’s fantasy.

NOT SO HARMLESS
So what’s wrong with a little digital “enhancement,” you may ask. Is there any more harm in folks’ admiring these idealized pictures than in, say, reading trashy romance novels? After all, during this deeply depressing era, shouldn’t we celebrate anyone’s finding simple beauty wherever they can?

What’s wrong is that it’s no longer simple beauty. Not when someone decides simple beauty is boring and starts messing with it. At least with the romance novel you know it’s fantasy. These doctored Facebook shares I’m seeing are offered—and apparently accepted, given all the compliments and heart emojis—as real.

Let’s look at the ruse in context.

You know how kids have been seduced by technology’s siren song of excess? By now, if it’s not bright, fast and, too often, violent it gets elbowed out of their impressionable consciousness by something that is.

If you’re a game or app developer or a creator of advertising you know this. That what you’re dealing is like a drug; it’s seductive, but quickly loses its kick. So you keep making it louder, faster, glitzier. If you don’t amaze them in the first few seconds, you’ve lost them.

          It’s an era in which the very concept
         of reality is being challenged.

HOOKED ON HYPE
But that’s our kids. We adults would never let ourselves get hooked on a drug that induces its own strain of ADD, right?

Sadly, many of us have. It seems reality, whether in the people we meet, events we experience, or the wonders of Nature, has started to bore us too. In fact, thanks to AI, it’s an era in which the very concept of reality is being challenged. Just a few years ago I saw this deception coming at us in little more than a trickle; it has now grown to a tsunami.

We see the hype in advertising, politics, journalism, entertainment…and now in our simple, everyday attempts at connecting with each other.

Even more troubling than the deceit is that it’s being generated by a relatively early form of the technology. This is only going to get worse.

             The real thing is perfectly beautiful  
             without your digital fiddling!

WHERE’S THE “FAKE” EMOJI?
Through which lens do you see your world? The perfectly fine one you were born with, the one that loves the amazing, imperfect, asymmetrical, muted-color way Nature renders reality? Or the one whose PhotoShop feature can’t leave well enough alone?

If, like me, you find Nature perfect just the way it is, what can you do about the spreading infection of artificial beauty? What I’m doing, first off, is simply to call it out for what it is. When I see someone's posted a bogus image I Google the subject to see if I can find any reference or image suggesting that such a person, place or thing really exists.

If not, I click on the “pissed off” emoji and comment something like: “This is fake,” “Never happened,” or “The real thing is perfectly beautiful without your digital deceit!”

Maybe, just maybe, if enough of us do this it will serve as a line in the sand for just how much artificial beauty we’re willing to accept. For how much of our souls we'll surrender in this deal with the devil that is digital technology.

A FEW GROUNDING RESOLUTIONS FOR A REALITY-CHALLENGED TIME

I believe I'm surrounded by wonders great and small, all the time, wherever 
I am.

I understand that many of those miracles lie hidden to first glances.

I will open my spirit to wonder. My eyes, my ears, my heart will follow.

I will make time for awareness, curiosity and wonder.

I will turn off the television, put down the book and start looking, learning and living first-hand.

I will decide for myself what entertains me and, more importantly, what nourishes my soul.

I will notice and celebrate the power of presence.   

I will carefully examine the myth of certainty, and value learning more than knowing.

I will be more aware of the miracle of grace that resides around and within 
every person.

I will shine the light of my own spirit, and will give other people the chance to shine too.

I will try to experience everything as if it were for the first time.

I will approach each day with faith in Nature's instruction, and with gratitude for being Her lifelong pupil.

I will be patient, not just with Nature, but with myself, celebrating small steps in the right direction.

I will seize every opportunity to help a screen-bound child reconnect with Nature. 


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ANIMAL MAGNETISM – A Dream to Remember

How often do you dream? If it’s frequently, you’re lucky. Me, I very seldom dream—or should I say, remember my dreams. So when I do remember one it’s likely to be a beaut…like the one I had last week:

I was taking a nap in the living room. As I awoke, I noticed Charlie, an old friend who’d been visiting me from Boston, standing next to me. He was about to leave and head back home. Without as much as sitting up, I gave him a sort of awkward handshake, and he walked toward the door with his small carry-on bag.

A few steps behind Charlie tottered a very young horse, a winsome, long-legged, still-slightly-gangly  chestnut foal. Charlie opened the door, turned and beckoned his young friend to leave with him. Instead the animal stopped beside my day bed, glanced down at me, and lay down…right on top of me.

Not the slightest bit alarmed, I put my arms around the beautiful animal, marveling at its smell. It wasn’t that I’d expected it to smell bad, but I thought it would at least smell like a horse. It didn’t; it smelled even better, a sweet, warm-nutty scent something like the way your skin smells after you lie in sun for while.

You’d think having a horse of any size lying on top of you would, if not crush
you, at least squeeze the wind out of you. But this foal was nearly weightless.
I felt nothing but its smooth, still-soft coat, its warmth, the slow ebb and flow
of its breath.

It nuzzled with me.

       The big cat licked my face and then 
       nestled its head in the crook of my neck.

WITHOUT A WORD
Charlie had left without a word, and I lay there overcome with wonder at this sweet animal’s affection for me; with what seemed like the opening of a clear channel of silent communication between us. It was as if our spirits flowed together into one. I closed my eyes and, basking in this magical moment, drifted off to sleep.

Later, when I opened my eyes, the foal had somehow morphed into a stunningly beautiful cat. Again, it was not the kind of cat you'd expect to be sleeping with—it was a cougar. It was looking right into my eyes, deeply, as if this was as extraordinary an experience for it as for me.
 

I studied every hair on the cougar’s face, the meld from fawn to white around its eyes and mouth, the little black spot at the root of each whisker. I could feel that
the animal shared my admiration and wonder.

The big cat licked my face and then nestled its head in the crook of my neck.
I did not lick it back.

When I awoke from my dream, I lay in bed for the longest time basking in the rapture of that transcendent experience. I felt a guest in a paradise of possibility, though, try as I might, I could not go back again and conjure up my enchanting new friends.

      Whatever life may throw at us, the only thing 
      we have to fear is failing to understand its
      place in that sacred reality.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
I've shared my dream with my wife and several friends. Inevitably, we traded hypotheses about its meaning. I guessed it might have been inspired by my recent visit with my grandchildren, and our snuggling at bedtime.

My wife thinks that’s too literal, and that the animals and their calming, positive energy were more likely a manifestation of my father, come back to reassure me during a time of extraordinary stress and anxiety in my life.

One friend has an even more literal take on it than I do: that my close encounter with such improbable creatures was merely a playing out of the mystical connection I already feel with all living things. It arises from my deep conviction that every single organism, every rock, every cloud, every drop of water, even the vast emptiness of deep space, is part of a single, universal whole.

And that, when we come face to face with whatever life may throw at us, the only thing we have to fear is failing to understand its place in that sacred reality.

THE REAL REALITY – It's In Our Nature

The bogus tweet and the stock market's reaction

This past Tuesday, a hacker managed to get into the AP’s twitter account and tweet “breaking” news that there had been explosions in the White House, and that President Obama was injured. In a matter of seconds the stock market fell 150 points, and some $136 billion in stocks were dumped in a robotic knee-jerk of automated mass trading.

Does anyone else find this troubling? Not just for its obvious implications for the integrity of our financial system, but for its potential political and psychological impact. Besides making a few people with nothing but ill intent and good timing quite rich, it seems this mere 72-character incursion into a mostly mindless social medium seriously threatened yet another body blow to our already fragile national psyche. 

Now I’m guessing most people would be concerned about what this says about the security of our investment apparatus. I wonder what it says about something far more profound: the state of our collective consciousness.

VIRTUAL REALITY – THE ULTIMATE OXYMORON
The AP/Twitter fiasco is far from the only abuse of our increasingly virtual connections with reality. Add to this a rash of other false news reports—some by news organizations we’d like to think might still value some degree of integrity—and one sees a disturbing pattern emerging: a kind of Faustian bargain in which we exchange our hard-won intelligence and God-given sense of curiosity for the quickest possible information—regardless of its source.

At least folks who've partaken of those 
fictions knew they were fictions.

What is it about this maniacal need to be the first to know, even at the expense of truth? Is it possible any more not to buy into it?

Indeed, the line between the real and the virtual started blurring a very long time ago. Escapist novels, theatre, film and television—each, in its heyday, the favorite pastime of nearly anyone in the world who could afford them—were the early culprits. But at least folks who've partaken of those fictions knew they were fictions.

Recent decades have spawned new choices and levels of virtual experience. So-called historical fiction, the TV docudrama, on-line dating. With the blossoming of the digital age, ever smaller computers, the social media and the cell phone have assured that almost no one, wherever they might be, whatever the time of day, is beyond the reach of news and information, further clouding the difference between real-life, face-to-face communication and a poor likeness that, again, sacrifices substance for convenience and speed.

Then there's video gaming, involving ever more realistic outlets for everything from playfulness to murderous rage. Virtual communities like Second Life allow subscribers to lose themselves in fantasy worlds of their own design, even carrying on a sort of hybrid of virtual and real commerce. No doubt someone's at work on the virtual vacation.

It's bad enough that we've lost touch with real experience, but we don't even know where our information is any more. We can't touch it; hell, we can't even hide it. No wonder, I guess, that the wisp of certainty we're left with these days is that it now resides "in the cloud."

THE NATURE OF OUR REALITY
Many of you know me as the “wonder guy,” the author of this blog on how to slow down, unplug from technology and appreciate life’s many small wonders. I want to help spread the word about the tragedy—and high cost—of our increasing alienation from Nature.

What we need is for individuals, families, communities, organizations and governments to realize that allowing Nature into every aspect of our lives—the way we're wired to operate—is absolutely vital to our physical and mental health…not to mention that of our planet.

Nature is the ultimate reality check, 
the consummate teacher of truth.

So, what’s the connection with hacking and bogus news reports and virtual you-name-it? I have this crazy theory that all these travesties may be symptomatic of our profound disconnection from Nature—and that repairing that rift might go a long way toward getting a generation's (real) feet back on the (real) ground.

Nature is the ultimate reality check, the consummate teacher—of wet and dry, cold and hot, open and closed, high and low, slow and fast—in fact, of any measure of where and how we are in space and time. There is no virtual here, only what is, only the truth.

And more of that truth, it seems to me, would serve us well in how we live our lives. Nature teaches human beings awareness, curiosity, wonder and gratitude. She knows nothing of deadlines. Her time isn't parceled out to fit neatly between station breaks. Her messages aren't sucked dry of nuance and color just so they'll fit on a 3" screen in less than 140 characters. And she has no interest in making life all about winners and losers.

DON'T BRING A BOOK
So how do we use Nature's example to help us reclaim our own sense of reality? Let's start with a couple of broad strokes: First, we should do what we say we do, and let technology be our tool, not our life. And we need to break out of our media-induced expectation of instant gratification, and learn be more patient and mindful.

Examine the myths of certainty and expectation  that may color your life, and ask yourself their price.

More specifically, here some simple steps anyone can take to start building a new, healthier, more honest reality:

• Get off the screen and into the scene. That means taking regular breaks where you disconnect from demands on your time and attention by anyone or anything that's not actually there with you.
  
• Get outdoors as often as possible. (Why not take scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster David Suzuki's 30/30 Challenge and spend at least 30 minutes a day outside in Nature every day in May?)
  
• Give yourself permission to not have an agenda. Find a beautiful, quiet place and just sit, just be.
  
• Don't bring a book. I know some will bristle at this, but the escape you want is to the here and now, not being transported to some other time and place.
  
• Take a kid with you sometimes; they're the original experts on honesty and presence.
  
• Examine the myths of certainty and expectation (including that of instant gratification) that may color your life, and ask yourself their price.
  
• Celebrate the difference between real-life, firsthand experience with Nature—the kind that uses all your senses—and the sped-up, dumbed-down version parceled out to us by the 24/7 global news/entertainment industry.

       (Can you think of other steps? We'd love to hear them – leave a comment!)

Think of these measures as an investment in a safer, saner reality, one whose return might be realized not just in greater clarity about what's genuine and good, but in better physical and mental health, in the richness and reach of your spiritual life; in sheer fun and relaxation, and in so many other ways.

And it's an investment whose principle can never be touched by the failings of ego or excess…or, God forbid, 72 lousy characters of virtual reality aimed at suckers who don't know any better.