media fast and mindfulness
Friday the Seattle Times ran a story on a new course with professor Mara Adelman at Seattle University, "Restorative Solitude". The 12 upper level communications students were originally asked to undertake a one week media fast. No ipod, cell phone, email, television, radio, car stereo, etc. etc. etc. The students protested and the fast was reduced to four days. As it turns out, however, even with the reduced time period, none of the students were able to completely abstain. From the story...
Adelman believes her new upper-level course "Restorative Solitude" is unique. It explores the importance of quiet time for clarity, creativity and spirituality, and touches on techniques ranging from long-distance running to meditation. It also explores the darker side of solitude: loneliness and isolation
This seems related at some level to the concept of mindfulness which I am currently starting to learn about in connection with the Addictive Behaviors Research Center (ABRC) at University of Washington. Mindfulness has been shown to be effective in relatively recent therapies which have been developed for stress reduction and chronic pain reduction. It seems that (from my understanding so far anyway), that at least certain streams within buddhism may have the best grasp on mindfulness of anyone in the world, in terms of learning and practicing it. So right now ABRC is just starting up a big project, the first of it's kind, I'm pretty sure, to see whether teaching mindfulness to those with addictive disorders can significantly reduce relapse outcomes.
So...
-Do you think you could fast from all media for a week? Why or why not?
-Lent begins on Wednesday. What do you think about the idea of a partial media fast for lent?
2 comments:
funnily enough, beloved, i'm toying with the idea of giving up the internet for lent! i'm hoping to then just use the computer for WRITING, which the internet always sidetracks me from, and also, i hope, to contemplate Jesus, in peacefulness. I find that idea so attractive, and yet so scary, and hard for me to do....
i love you darling,
love Megs
yes. i know i can, because i did once...it's particularly easier when you're in the middle of an african village...
i think it's somehow easier to fast from media when you're in the country/wilderness and it's not there. living in the city, working with a computer, it would be hard to sit here and not surf the net or listen to music on the radio... and it would be hard not to use my cell phone. but when i'm camping, for example, those things seem so unnecessary.
i wonder why that is.
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