This is a guest post by Jesse Homan, Dialectical Behavior Therapy therapist and coach. He is passionate about people and how we all connect with each other, our communities and the planet.
A few months ago, I hosted (and attended) a weekend retreat in rural Washington with other therapists. As a way to educate ourselves, we cooked together, created eco-art, sang, played games and participated with a guide. bathing in the forest session.
The retreat was co-created by the participants, each of us sharing our activities with the group. In turn, I handed over 120mm cameras to Hol so that everyone could shoot film over the weekend. (For those unfamiliar with Holgas, they are very basic cameras – plastic body and lens, two “f-stops” and one shutter speed).
In giving away these cameras to everyone, I had one goal in mind – and it certainly wasn’t to take great pictures. It was a struggle learning to use cameras. Why am I deliberately proposing a project based on inevitable disappointment and frustration?
My gift was meant to be a meaningful reminder that simply playing and having fun, even in frustration and despair, can be a rewarding journey in itself. With commitment and continued effort, I assumed they could learn how to use these cameras and improve their skills.
In the midst of rapid technological diffusion and upsurge AI This question seems to be taking on new importance: How can we, as human beings, create meaning, experience a deep sense of accomplishment, and tap into the simplicity of joy in these complex modern times?
Although this is a much-discussed topic, Sebastion Junger tribe gives a clear answer to this question: too much comfort is the enemy of life, meaning and vitality. When I think about all the modern conveniences most of us live with these days – on-demand streaming, GPS navigation, smart phones – I see the downside. As convenient as these devices are, they can also hinder our ability to grow and enjoy life. Ironically, these modern technologies make us smarter, less capable, less self-confident and more vulnerable.
For example, remember the days of renting DVD movies at a video store like Blockbuster? If you want to watch a movie at home, you will need to go to a rental store and rent it. The move could cause minor frustrations and inconveniences: leaving the house, navigating traffic, dealing with people at the store, waiting at the checkout counter, and sometimes adjusting plans when all the copies of the movie you wanted were sold out.
Do you know? Frustration and frustration were part of the movie rental experience.
Of course, there are countless other examples, like getting lost on your way to a new restaurant or meeting place, waiting for your friend to leave work to answer the phone, trying to figure out how to fix something broken in your home without AI, etc. As strange as it sounds, I’m dying for those experiences right now. as a therapist, I believe that this type of grit is built on small disappointments and endurance – and even a certain kind of satisfaction – to the basis of American culture.
To continue this idea, letting go of disappointment is an important ritual that helps children prepare for future disappointments and teaches them how to manage less pleasant emotions. Back then, if a child’s first choice movie wasn’t available, they had to choose something else. If their parents wanted to order in, they had little choice: mostly pizza or Chinese food.
Today, if you want to watch a movie at home, you can usually get it delivered instantly on many platforms. If you want to order food, you have a choice in almost every restaurant. The gig economy means that any business can bring whatever you want to your door. No patience is required and you can do everything with limited human interaction.
Yet for all its comfort and convenience, technology has failed us on a very basic human level. Although you may get “x” faster, it creates expectations and speeds up life to a point where you can feel more yourself. emphasized and less happy.
In fact, according to Stress in America requestMore than 50% of US adults now report symptoms loneliness. As Dr. Anna Lembke puts it NY Times interview“All we do is masturbate and spend a lot of time shopping and watching what other people are doing online.” Is this really how we want to live our lives?
As a Dialectical Behavioral Therapist, I understand that skill building is a way we can reduce our vulnerability to negative emotions. Building skills involves engaging in behaviors and actions over a period of time that ultimately make us feel competent, confident, and effective. And that includes facing obstacles, hiccups, and struggles along the way. Encouraging my clients to try something that is difficult at first, but doable, and working to build on it over time. For example: try learning a language or take on a home improvement project, practice an instrument or plant a garden for the first time or wear socks.
As for the Holga camera, its imperfections and quirks are a lesson in patience, practice, and maybe one day, mastery.
Of course, on our retreat, we may have cut short all of this and taken our photos sooner. We may have used automatic editing functions or filters to achieve a quick and impressive result. But then again, what would we have learned?
Living in a post-AI world, you can ditch your skills and replace them with a software-ready device. Again, you move from a manual capacity to a passive receptive capacity. And in this there is a deep loss – a loss of knowledge, creativitygrowth and resilience. We cannot imagine how much we will lose until it is too late.
