Work, Service, and Media Hygiene

HOW TO COPE WITH TOXIC MESSAGES THAT PERVADE MODERN MEDIA
(slightly shorter version published originally in Yoga Living Magazine, September-October, 2008)

Work Should "Wake Up the Soul"

Karma Yoga--it's the yoga of work and service.  In an increasingly sit-down, keyboard-focused, stare-at-the-screen workplace, good CyberSense can help you stay whole and healthy.  So I could write here about ergonomic chairs, good monitor placement, frequent stand-up-and-stretch breaks. 

Those are all important.  Care for your body.  Do your asanas (yogic exercises)--or some form of preferred physical activity.  But you can look up ergonomics and stretches easily elsewhere.  Let's talk here about what you are exposed to on all those screens, and in print as well. 

In his classic book Karma-Yoga, Vivekananda says:  "the aim of all work is to bring out the power of the mind ...  to wake up the soul."  My last CyberSense essay contrasted reading with video.   Too much video, especially with the prevalence of "eye-candy," actually dulls the "power of your mind."   Attention span, and imaginative focus on the mythic journey of your own soul--these are more likely strengthened by certain sorts of reading.

But What Kind of Messages Pour In?

Now with all the material your mind consumes, via whatever media, at work or play--there is this other, deeper issue.  What kind of messages are pouring in?  And what are you doing with those messages? 

Even if, or especially if, most of what you consume is "entertainment," Vivekananda's statement suggests that there is work, and service, to be done around that consumption.  Are the predominant messages you receive these days helping to "wake up" your soul and the souls of your loved ones?  If they are not, what can you do about it?

A Flashflood of Biased Content

Most of us are immersed these days, like it or not, in a flashflood of "content."  That's the modern word for stories, lessons, ads, pictures, video, what-have-you. Technology helps content, especially advertising, creep onto every available space.  Video screens now blare at us from the tops of gas pumps and come installed in new cars.  Animated promotions dance annoyingly across TV programs you watch, or splash across the text you're reading on web pages. 

All this goes double for the younger ones-plugged into their iPods, trading text messages and videos.  And the unstoppable outpouring of paper junk mail is just simply an ecological crime.  To support the Post Office, it appears, we are forced to participate in  planetary destruction.

Flashflood Theme 1--Consume Goods and Content to be Happy

Now, in fact, it is both very easy and profoundly distressing to distill out some  major messages carried along in this flood.  Message one is:  consumption of manufactured products, including more content, is what beautiful, successful, fulfilled people do in life.  Doing this well--acquiring more wealth to buy more, spending more time plugged in so that you know more sooner than your neighbor--these things will make you like the ghostly icons of happiness dancing so seductively on your screens.

Flashflood Theme 2--Disease Will Get You, Unless...

Message two is:  disease and mood disorders lurk everywhere, and the sooner you accept your need for the latest drugs and the finest hospitals, the safer you will be.  Your body does NOT have its own profound healing powers.  Big science and big pharma are now your only and best hope.  No matter that the health care system in the US is itself deeply flawed. 

Flashflood Theme 3--Trust Not, Fear Everything...

And message three, conveyed mostly by the selective choice of what is newsworthy, is:  do not trust your fellow humans.  Other races, other nations, criminals, crazies, splinter groups, even people right there in your own community--they are a constant threat to you.  We might broaden this one slightly and just say--fear it all.  Fear earth catastrophes, infra-structure breakdowns, failed political systems, terrorism, and your own dying, disease-prone body. 

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

I could add other themes here around youth (the only form of beauty), sex (forbidden but, still the hottest sizzle), and violence (inevitable, tragic, and, uh--oh so cool).  But, well, you get the picture.  Content like this verges on dreadful, dead-end, self-fulfilling lies.  Joseph Campbell says Western culture is in certain ways just simply in free-fall, and, looking clearly at these predominant themes, it's hard to disagree. 

How would it feel, on the other hand, to be surrounded by a flood of artistically beautiful content implying the opposite of these messages?  Imagine a culture in which not just commercials, but also scripts and even news reinforced things like:

• "Remember--wholeness lies within."
• "Find and follow the unique path of your own heart."   
• "Your body has strong natural healing powers." 
• "Learn and teach others to trust humanity."
• "We are children of the Earth, and can heal her."

Exceptions Exist, but Are in the Minority

Of course, in the flashflood themes, I am sketching with a very broad brush.  There are exceptions to be sure.  Yoga Living Magazine is one.  Utne Reader, NPR, PBS, parts of the Christian media usually fit here as well.  As do others I am not aware of.  But many of the exceptions are small and under siege. 

"I don't pay attention to the negative stuff," you may say, "It doesn't affect me." Excellent.  But be very aware of how much harder avoiding it gets every year. 

Media Hygiene--Be Aware, Limit Exposure, Reverse Toxic Messages

That brings us to our candidates for the human-machine niyamas (yogic observances) and yamas (yogic restrictions) in this area.  Together, we might call these "media hygiene."  There is mental work necessary to stay aware of what kind of messages are being pumped at you, and how they are affecting you and your loved ones.  The niyama is:  do that work, cultivate message awareness.

The yama is:  find ways to limit your exposure to toxic messages and replace them with honest and healthy ones. The service here is:  help your loved ones do this also.

How Do You Practice Media Hygiene?

There is so much that could be said here about HOW to do this.  I can only hint here at some of my own tactics.  Hopefully, we can explore this more in comments, or else in later posts here.

Despite concerns about intellectual property and the need to fund artistic content--I shut off the sound during most commercials.  Eventually, as available and affordable, I would purchase technology to scrub them.   I stand up and stretch, often, during commercial moments.  Or I listen to one at times and then work my mind by making up an anti-commercial. What is the positive truth being denied by this ad and how would I encapsulate or sell it to myself and my families?  Instead of "beer brings me beauty and friends," I build the affirmation "healthy living and honest communication bring me beauty and friends."

I watch carefully for "product placement" (writing brand name products into the scripts themselves), which is becoming a preferred form of advertising.  Because it fits my taste for parody, I watch John Stewart and Stephen Colbert skewer with humor the absurdities of the news media.  I support public and non-commercial media where I can.  What are your ideas here?

Beware of Background Hypnosis

Finally, I would remind you of something that Dion Fortune points out in a dated, partly flawed, but still practical book, Psychic Self-Defense.  An "incantation" is an artistically powerful affirmation that works best when experienced over and over again, entering and becoming accepted by the sub-conscious most easily as the conscious mind stops paying attention to it.  Whether you think of them as magic, or simply hypnosis, commercials created in today's televised media can be extremely powerful, often toxic incantations.  Letting them run on, as background noise, may not be healthy.  It is while they are murmuring away there beneath your attention span, over and over again, that they can affect you most strongly.  Good CyberSense says:  media hygiene matters. 

Create Your Own Positive Background Hypnosis

Recently, I experimented with creating a media environment of my own that reflects more positive values.  I share this here because it was wildly successful.  Find or create a few affirmations (short positive statments that reflect attitudes you want to strengthen), record them (possibly with some nice ambient background music) on your Mac or PC, and download 3 or more of these to your Ipod, phone, or MP3 player.  Shuffle just these files to yourself in a playlist via earbuds while you are napping, meditating, or sleeping at night.  Do it regularly for a week or so and see if you don't find whatever you affirmed cropping up spontaneously in your daily life.  For me, the effectiveness of this technique has been quite dramatic.

Even if, or especially if, most of what you consume is "entertainment," Vivekananda's statement suggests that there is work, and service, to be done around that consumption.  Are the predominant messages you receive these days helping to "wake up" your soul and the souls of your loved ones?  If they are not, what can you do about it?

A Flashflood of Biased Content

Most of us are immersed these days, like it or not, in a flashflood of "content."  That's the modern word for stories, lessons, ads, pictures, video, what-have-you. Technology helps content, especially advertising, creep onto every available space.  Video screens now blare at us from the tops of gas pumps and come installed in new cars.  Animated promotions dance annoyingly across TV programs you watch, or splash across the text you're reading on web pages. 

All this goes double for the younger ones-plugged into their iPods, trading text messages and videos.  And the unstoppable outpouring of paper junk mail is just simply an ecological crime.  To support the Post Office, it appears, we are forced to participate in  planetary destruction.

Flashflood Theme 1--Consume Goods and Content to be Happy

Now, in fact, it is both very easy and profoundly distressing to distill out some  major messages carried along in this flood.  Message one is:  consumption of manufactured products, including more content, is what beautiful, successful, fulfilled people do in life.  Doing this well--acquiring more wealth to buy more, spending more time plugged in so that you know more sooner than your neighbor--these things will make you like the ghostly icons of happiness dancing so seductively on your screens.

Flashflood Theme 2--Disease Will Get You, Unless...

Message two is:  disease and mood disorders lurk everywhere, and the sooner you accept your need for the latest drugs and the finest hospitals, the safer you will be.  Your body does NOT have its own profound healing powers.  Big science and big pharma are now your only and best hope.  No matter that the health care system in the US is itself deeply flawed. 

Flashflood Theme 3--Trust Not, Fear Everything...

And message three, conveyed mostly by the selective choice of what is newsworthy, is:  do not trust your fellow humans.  Other races, other nations, criminals, crazies, splinter groups, even people right there in your own community--they are a constant threat to you.  We might broaden this one slightly and just say--fear it all.  Fear earth catastrophes, infra-structure breakdowns, failed political systems, terrorism, and your own dying, disease-prone body. 

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

I could add other themes here around youth (the only form of beauty), sex (forbidden but, still the hottest sizzle), and violence (inevitable, tragic, and, uh--oh so cool).  But, well, you get the picture.  Content like this verges on dreadful, dead-end, self-fulfilling lies.  Joseph Campbell says Western culture is in certain ways just simply in free-fall, and, looking clearly at these predominant themes, it's hard to disagree. 

How would it feel, on the other hand, to be surrounded by a flood of artistically beautiful content implying the opposite of these messages?  Imagine a culture in which not just commercials, but also scripts and even news reinforced things like:

• "Remember--wholeness lies within."
• "Find and follow the unique path of your own heart."   
• "Your body has strong natural healing powers." 
• "Learn and teach others to trust humanity."
• "We are children of the Earth, and can heal her."

Exceptions Exist, but Are in the Minority

Of course, in the flashflood themes, I am sketching with a very broad brush.  There are exceptions to be sure.  Yoga Living Magazine is one.  Utne Reader, NPR, PBS, parts of the Christian media usually fit here as well.  As do others I am not aware of.  But many of the exceptions are small and under siege. 

"I don't pay attention to the negative stuff," you may say, "It doesn't affect me." Excellent.  But be very aware of how much harder avoiding it gets every year. 

Media Hygiene--Be Aware, Limit Exposure, Reverse Toxic Messages

That brings us to our candidates for the human-machine niyamas (yogic observances) and yamas (yogic restrictions) in this area.  Together, we might call these "media hygiene."  There is mental work necessary to stay aware of what kind of messages are being pumped at you, and how they are affecting you and your loved ones.  The niyama is:  do that work, cultivate message awareness.

The yama is:  find ways to limit your exposure to toxic messages and replace them with honest and healthy ones. The service here is:  help your loved ones do this also.

How Do You Practice Media Hygiene?

There is so much that could be said here about HOW to do this.  I can only hint here at some of my own tactics.  Hopefully, we can explore this more in comments, or else in later posts here.

Despite concerns about intellectual property and the need to fund artistic content--I shut off the sound during most commercials.  Eventually, as available and affordable, I would purchase technology to scrub them.   I stand up and stretch, often, during commercial moments.  Or I listen to one at times and then work my mind by making up an anti-commercial. What is the positive truth being denied by this ad and how would I encapsulate or sell it to myself and my families?  Instead of "beer brings me beauty and friends," I build the affirmation "healthy living and honest communication bring me beauty and friends."

I watch carefully for "product placement" (writing brand name products into the scripts themselves), which is becoming a preferred form of advertising.  Because it fits my taste for parody, I watch John Stewart and Stephen Colbert skewer with humor the absurdities of the news media.  I support public and non-commercial media where I can.  What are your ideas here?

Beware of Background Hypnosis

Finally, I would remind you of something that Dion Fortune points out in a dated, partly flawed, but still practical book, Psychic Self-Defense.  An "incantation" is an artistically powerful affirmation that works best when experienced over and over again, entering and becoming accepted by the sub-conscious most easily as the conscious mind stops paying attention to it.  Whether you think of them as magic, or simply hypnosis, commercials created in today's televised media can be extremely powerful, often toxic incantations.  Letting them run on, as background noise, may not be healthy.  It is while they are murmuring away there beneath your attention span, over and over again, that they can affect you most strongly.  Good CyberSense says:  media hygiene matters. 

Create Your Own Positive Background Hypnosis

Recently, I experimented with creating a media environment of my own that reflects more positive values.  I share this here because it was wildly successful.  Find or create a few affirmations (short positive statments that reflect attitudes you want to strengthen), record them (possibly with some nice ambient background music) on your Mac or PC, and download 3 or more of these to your Ipod, phone, or MP3 player.  Shuffle just these files to yourself in a playlist via earbuds while you are napping, meditating, or sleeping at night.  Do it regularly for a week or so and see if you don't find whatever you affirmed cropping up spontaneously in your daily life.  For me, the effectiveness of this technique has been quite dramatic.