![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jayanthmurali.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/i1-300x189.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
During my childhood, I would attend school, study a bit and play the remainder of the\u00a0time outdoors till my parents yanked me and heaved me home after it got dark. I wish I\u00a0could get into a time machine and go back in time to relive those glorious tech-free\u00a0analog days, which were the best days of my life. We did not have smartphones or fancy\u00a0gadgets. Simple things such as a tennis ball or marbles were enough to keep us\u00a0enthralled the entire day. Screen glued kids of today are just a shadow of what we were.\u00a0They may never know the glee of playing in grime and dirt under the scorching sun, the\u00a0ecstasy of splashing about in puddles of fresh rainwater, the rapture of puttering in the\u00a0backyard, the thrill of hopping over walls to steal mangoes on the way back from school,\u00a0the amusement of endless pranks at school, the exhilaration of punching and clobbering\u00a0up the winning cricket team after a loss, the euphoria of clandestinely lighting up a\u00a0cigarette, the agony of suffering bruises while playing it rough, the misery of being\u00a0ambushed and thrashed by the rival gang and the charm and allure of playing hide and\u00a0seek under the moonlight.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jayanthmurali.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/i2-300x199.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, after I grew up to be a junior college student in Hyderabad, I went\u00a0backpacking for two months in the hilly terrains of the Himalayas on a shoestring budget.\u00a0I could travel that far by myself as my father was an officer in the Railways. That entitled\u00a0me to a free first-class train pass as a family member. For those two months, none of my\u00a0friends or family knew where I was, nor did they have any idea whether I was living or\u00a0dead. I might have dialled my parents a couple of times to let them know I was well\u00a0whenever I reached a town having an STD booth. Long-distance calls were prohibitively\u00a0expensive, so my conversations never lingered more than a couple of minutes. I\u00a0frequently mailed letters that reached my parents a week later. There were no cell\u00a0phones, no email, no texting, no digital photography. I hauled money as cash, which I\u00a0stashed away in my underwear from the reach of pick-pocketers. I toted a Minolta camera\u00a0which took photographs on a film, 36 frames per film, which we could develop only at a\u00a0studio.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jayanthmurali.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/i4-300x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
No kid today will ever have that experience. Anybody travelling today would be texting,\u00a0emailing, posting on Facebook and tweeting every moment. A sense of being in a new\u00a0place is not there today. Once I got on the train, there was no way to contact the world I\u00a0had left behind. In short, cell phones and modern technology have taken away the sense\u00a0of isolation and have made us perpetually available. I see people today unable to function\u00a0without a smartphone and mighty scared to leave home without a cellphone.<\/p>\n
Come to think; we have learnt to use and forge earth’s elements to manufacture\u00a0computers and phones. But any gift of God could eventually become a curse if we\u00a0become profoundly entrenched and attached to it and are incapable of detaching\u00a0ourselves. Creating and living in a digital scenario in which we have total control over\u00a0every possible outcome, contrary to living with nature that is unpredictable, dangerous\u00a0and chaotic, is akin to playing God or, worse, becoming God itself. Therefore we must\u00a0know how to detach from digital and embrace analog because, with every irrational\u00a0embrace of new technology, we could be giving rise to dystopian consequences.<\/p>\n
For instance, in the movie Matrix, a war erupts in the early 21st century, between\u00a0humanity and intelligent machines, in which humanity loses the battle, after which all\u00a0surviving humans are subsequently apprehended and restrained in a \u201cMatrix,\u201d which is a\u00a0shared alternative reality, constructed to imitate the world as it existed in 1999. The\u00a0survivors could live the rest of their lives, happily plugged into the Matrix blissfully\u00a0unaware that they are floating naked in a human glass pod with IV vitamins and calories\u00a0to sustain their brains and bodies in what is purely digital existence. Such dystopian\u00a0futures are also portrayed in several films such as \u201cBlade Runner 2049 and \u201cMinority\u00a0Report\u201d. We are today not far behind these films. Shortly, we would be having humans\u00a0living digitally and virtually in similar conditions if we continue to distance ourselves\u00a0from nature and lead a technology-imbued, analogue-obsolete existence.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jayanthmurali.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/i5-300x173.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Under such digital existence, our future food could seem like an asymmetrical\u00a0fancy-looking block of ideally constituted carbon molecules with a customised, highly\u00a0engineered protein, fat, and carbohydrates. This nutriment will not only match a person’s\u00a0precise biological needs but, when paired with VR goggles and a haptic headset, will\u00a0allow one to experience all the joy of happily chowing down a Thalappakatti or Paradise\u00a0biryani with a bottle of chilled coke. As far as spirituality is concerned, in the digital\u00a0world, we may not have to meditate like Buddhist monks in a monastery to attain\u00a0enlightenment and bliss. We would experience enlightenment by merely strapping on\u00a0Oculus Rift with software like Tripp to create an indescribable spiritual experience. A\u00a0sedentary digital lifestyle, rapid internet access to pornography, virtual reality headsets,\u00a0the evolution of love dolls or sex dolls as actual artificially intelligent humans capable of\u00a0giving a man or woman all the sensual pleasure they might derive from intercourse with a\u00a0real, attractive human being is leading to reduced levels of hormones. Doug Wilsons\u00a0book \u201cRide Sally Ride\u201d, which is being made into a movie, hilariously describes the\u00a0slippery slope of sex doll advancement and its consequences.<\/p>\n
If we let ourselves go so deep into the digital territory, we will have to give up part of us\u00a0that makes us human. Analog experiences engage our senses and connect us to people,\u00a0unlike digital, which disconnects and isolates us. We have to start filling our world with\u00a0real-world connections and activities and learn to unplug the digital and put it back in its\u00a0box. People who have started embracing the analog world are practising digital
\ndecluttering and deleting Facebook accounts. Such yearning to return to analogue\u00a0reveals our craving to reconnect with humanity. David Sax\u2019s amazing book \u201cThe Revenge\u00a0of Analog: Real Things and Why they Matter\u201d talks about the resurgence of all things\u00a0analog, including analog objects such as Vinyl records, board games, paper notebooks,\u00a0brick-and-mortar bookstores that have a lmost become extinct.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jayanthmurali.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/i6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Digital technology may lead us away from tasting God’s creation by immersing us in a\u00a0fake world but if I had to choose between the two worlds, I would not totally discard the\u00a0digital but I would continue to embrace the analog while responsibly and minimally\u00a0utilising the digital.<\/p>\n
So, even when the erratic and turbulent analog world feels way better than the sham and\u00a0phoney digital world. I would still need the digital space to write blogs on my website\u00a0(www.jayanthmurali.com<\/a><\/span>), shop online and do myriad other things. For instance, We at\u00a0the Armed Police are planning to reach out during the current pandemic through the\u00a0internet to launch an outreach initiative that rolls out varied voluntary services to society\u00a0and facilitates virtual volunteers to offer theirs by enrolling themselves through our\u00a0website \u201cLetsfightcorona.com<\/span><\/a> (under construction), which will be in place within the next\u00a0three days. I am also planning to reach donors by hosting a web-page to raise funds for\u00a0the Government by running a distance of 50 km to fight the ongoing Corona pandemic.\u00a0Therefore, despite leading an amazing analog life, we could continue using digital\u00a0conveniences responsibly while celebrating the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jayanthmurali.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/auth.jpeg\")
Dr.K. Jayanth Murali is an IPS Officer belonging to 1991 batch. He is borne on Tamil Nadu cadre. He lives with his family in Chennai, India.\u00a0He is currently serving the Government of Tamil Nadu as Additional Director General of Police, Armed Police.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"