Some parents really struggle. Like, “All the other kids have the terrible thing. So my kid has to have…No, let your kid go and be a better example to the other %^$# kids. Just because other stupid kids have phone doesn’t mean – “Well okay my kid has to be stupid otherwise she will feel weird.”
You know, I think these things [mobile phones] are toxic, especially for kids. It’s just this thing [that they are always immersed in]. It’s bad. They don’t look at people when they talk to them. They don’t build empathy. You know, kids are mean. And its because they are trying it out – they look at a kid and they go, “You are fat.” And then they see the kid’s face scrunch up and they go, “O, that doesn’t feel good to make a person do that.” But they got to start with doing the mean thing. But when they write “You are fat” they go “Mm…that was fun.. I like that.”
The thing is, you need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That’s what the phones are taking away. The ability to just sit there – like this. That’s being a person, right? No one can [do that]. They gotta…you gotta check…Because, you know, underneath everything in your life – there is that thing…that empty – forever empty thing. You know what I am talking about? Sometimes when things clear away…you are not watching anything… and you are in your car and you start going, “Oh no…here it comes! That I am alone…” It starts to visit on you. Just the sadness. Life is tremendously sad just by being in it. And so you are driving and you go, “Ahhh…” That’s why we text and drive.
People are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second. Because it is so hard.
I was in my car one time and a Bruce Springsteen song comes on and…it gave me a fall-back to depression..it made me really sad. And I go okay I am getting sad – I got to get the phone and write like Hi to 50 people. And then you know somebody cool writes back and somebody not so cool writes back. And I am like, “%^% you’ I got somebody better.” So anyway I started getting the sad feeling and I was reaching for the phone and I said, “You know what, don’t! Just be sad. Stand on the way of it and let it hit you like a truck.” And I let it come and…I started to feel “Oh my god.” And I pulled over and I just cried like a %^%$. I cried so much and it was beautiful. It was like this…sadness is poetic. You are lucky to live sad moments. And then I had happy feelings, because when you let yourself feel sad, your body has like anti-bodies. It had like happiness that comes rushing in to meet the sadness. So I was grateful to feel sad and then I met it with true profound happiness. It was such a trip.
The thing is because we don’t want that first bit of sad, we push it away with the little phone %^$^ to %$% off, through the food…and you get a little… you never get completely sad or completely happy. You just feel kind of satisfied with your products. And then you die.
So, that’s why I don’t want to get a phone for my kids.
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