Get a Bell As Well

With all these high tech gadgets around me, sometimes it just gets too much. When that happens I usually decide to distance myself from it for a while and reflect on life. I turn off my computer, leave my mobile phone inside the bedroom, take out some fruits and juices from the fridge, and go to my little backyard garden and sit on a porch.

Resting and removing yourself from your old surroundings make one more at peace with him. It's not like getting away from it all like a vacation, but rather it's a way to embrace nature and the past where one can truly focus on one thing at a time compared to what we have today. Living today is like running on a racetrack while getting hosed down by water. We can only endure much, and taking a break from it is a nice respite.

Although I appreciate the silence, too much of it can make me crazy. That's why I still have the farm bell that my old grandparents gave to my parent on their wedding (I know it's a weird gift, but I was the one who benefited from it as you'll see later). I use it in mediation like Buddhists do for chanting mantras.

The farm bell, also called a dinner bell, is used as a notice for everyone in the fields of the farm or inside the house that it's time to eat. As a small child I used to hear that bell a lot when me and my parents still lived on the farm and was confused as to where that sound came from. All I knew then was that the bell sound meant I was going to eat my daily meals.

These days, that farm bell sound is a way for me to focus my attention to one object alone, keeping all distractions away. It's true that technology helps us in working better but it somehow has also made us too frazzled, unfocused, and dependent on them. As a tech blogger I'd like to promote technology but it's not the be all and all. I see it more as something we can use to help us further in reaching our potential. But that's an ideal situation. Most techies focus too much of their time on their gadgets and very little time in the real world around them. Sometimes watching a video of a rainstorm when they have one just outside the window (yep, I did that once), playing a game where their characters go around the neighborhood and socialize (yes, me again), or participate in one of those MMOS where they get jobs (ouch).

Take an advice from a fellow techie, get a farm bell.