Is Progress Really Advancement? A Question of Perspective.

Progress. What is progress? Is it advancement? Moving forward? And is moving forward always a good thing? Who decides?

We move so magnetically toward what makes life easier, more convenient. But these conveniences often slow us down in other ways, allow us, force us, to lose touch with our essence, with what is truly important. These advancements allow us to lose touch with ourselves, with human decency, with humanity. Or IS that humanity? Always seeking something better, something more? 

I'd like to think not.

Or perhaps my idea of something better, something more, is just different. Realistically, I am, in fact, doing the same thing. Moving forward, progressing. Just within myself and within the Earth rather than in contraptions and technology. I just can't help but think we continually "progress" toward taking more for granted.

But wait - I am not free of this either. I am a part of it. I am subject to it. I am typing on a computer right now. Perfect example. Why am I not penning this? Because typing is more convenient as I sip my coffee brewed from an automatic coffee maker listening to my iTunes, illuminated by electric light. 

I love my conveniences. But I also despise them. At least some of them. I feel myself losing touch. I used to be able to sit and think. To sit and listen to the world around me and to myself. I have a hard time with that any more. It is all too easy to fill in the space, the silence, the time, with Facebook, with texts, with something other than actual thinking or listening. But I miss it. And I don't know how to get it back. 

Progress? Our society calls industry and technology that. But perhaps progress is taking a few steps back and remembering that we are living breathing beings, part of a living breathing Earth that is being destroyed by some of our so-called progress. Perhaps we should realize that, inherently, WE can be destroyed by this wonderful, awful, tumultuous thing called progress. Or perhaps we just need to rethink and reimagine what progress really is.

(I call progress peace, equality, humanity, environmental unity and synchronicity. You?)