Put Your Life On Pause

I've been looking for videos for a post I'm preparing and one had an American Airlines ad.  Two people are scuba diving among spectacularly colored coral and fish and they swim past a Departure/Arrival monitor.


A few seconds later he checks his iPhone.   And then they are rushing through the airport to the plane and the voice says, "Fly without putting your life on pause."

I'm here to say, you're supposed to put your life on pause when you go on vacation.  This is part of our massive marketing brainwashing that we always have to be connected electronically with every possible device.  And each one needs to be discarded in a couple of years (less if you're really hip)  and you have to buy a new one. 

You don't have to.  That was part of Penny Arcade's message - don't be the person others tell you to be, discover who you really are.  Now, some people really need to be the first to have any new gadget.  Let them be.  Let them pay premium prices to work the bugs out.  But the rest of us don't need to.

So I saw this ad and considered it as a possible posting topic, but dismissed it.  Until an hour or so later when a friend skyped me  from a function he's at with his wife.

I was able to watch that Youtube on my cell ph         7:59 PM
Kinda exciting here                                                    7:59 PM
Not

I skyped back that a summer school Spanish teacher once told me "An intelligent person is never bored."  And I've made sure I was never bored since.  There is always something to observe and learn.  Wherever you are.

I suggested he track how many people there were, what colors they were wearing.  What food was served.  To write down the most interesting sentence anyone says.  The world is full of data, you just have to see it, track it, and make sense of it. 

So, ignore American Airlines.  Put Your Life on Pause. Often.  Enjoy the time on the plane to unplug. Enjoy moments, hours, every day, to connect to nature,  to connect to yourself.

I'm hoping that part of what the Occupy people are about is this sort of 'pause,' escape from the kind of life corporate America wants us to live.