tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5970683153008645393.post4270330973116742703..comments2024-01-09T16:17:22.327-06:00Comments on Bring the Books: The Disconnected SocietyAdam Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05826908205996140341noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5970683153008645393.post-57351721536467422382010-02-12T08:08:13.114-06:002010-02-12T08:08:13.114-06:00This is a great post. i never intended to fall on ...This is a great post. i never intended to fall on this christian blog even though i am christian as i was googling disconnectedness and trying to find a solution. not necessarily for myself, though i think we all feel it, but to try and help society in general. as i write this comment and in respect to the above two pieces above, i hope that whoever reads this finds the solution into reaching out. whether its to God, your mum, brother, or friend or beggar, just do it. if you still doubt you are alive, take a pin and prick yourself and watch the blood pop out. then lick it and realise this is the stuff that makes you live. we all go through disconnectedness and as technology shapes us as humans even more so. but the secret is to know the truth. if you know the truth. all the technology in the world cannot distort you. if you want to know where to start finding the truth, start making a determined effort to look for it everyday instead of being complacent about it. finding truth seek effort. life as we know it is made up of doing the usual. spouse, kids, nursing home death. But if you are constantly seeking the truth, then it is yours and noone elses. and it will strengthen your identity and who you are. ok enough talk. do it. if you care enough about yourself. find your truth. and if you have to ask where do i start, then only you know the answer. you can do it. you owe it to yourself.greg khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17123826825266274122noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5970683153008645393.post-86062085231183077052008-05-30T10:33:00.000-05:002008-05-30T10:33:00.000-05:00I agree with what you said about Mega churches. ...I agree with what you said about Mega churches. The more people in the church the less likely you are to get to know anyone there. But I think the situation is more complicated than physical disconnection.<BR/><BR/>Take for instance the broken down car dilemma. Studies have shown that when a person's car breaks down in an area where few people are likely to see them, (such as on a deserted country road - an area in which one is physically disconnected from others) the likelihood that someone will help them is high, whereas if someone breaks down in a highly populated area (such as a busy free way in Phoenix - a place you would think qualifies as an area in which there is no real physical disconnection) the liklihood that someone will stop to help them is extremely low. Why is this? On the deserted road, the person driving by realizes that he might be the only one that could help this person. So he stops. He feels a sort of sense of duty to help, and the duty is amplified and made personal to him by the seemingly low liklihood that anyone else will help. (This is ironic, because in fact he believes the liklihood is low, but the fact that everyone who drives by feels that the liklihood is low actually makes it high and his help is needed less!) <BR/><BR/>Wheras in a busy area, if the broken down car is even noticed, the person driving by still says to himself "this area is really busy -somone else will help him. " Because everyone driving by has the same assumption no one ends up helping. The person on the road frequented by 50,000 cars ends up being less likly to find help than the person on the road frequented by 50. <BR/><BR/>The same thing goes for churches. If you go to a small church, generally the individuals in the small church are likly to greet you, befriend you, and welcome you into the community because they realize how small the community is and know that if they don't do it it won't get done. In the mega church, the attendees not only are unlikely to ever notice you, or know that you are new, but even if they knew it they would be likly to assume that someone else is going to greet you and befriend you. You end up being alone in a crowd. <BR/><BR/>So I agree with a lot of what you said Adam. However, I think it's not as simple as personal interaction. The individuals in church are sitting right next to each other. They aren't seperated by car doors or cubicles. The individuals walking to the subway in new york who walk by the homeless person begging on the street walk right by him. Out in the open just like everyone else. The stood only 2 feet from him while waiting in line for the subway. There's no seperation there except in their mind. There's no physical disconnection at all! You could probably tell how long it's been since he's had a shower if you bothered to pay attention. <BR/><BR/>But it wouldn't be quite right to say there's no disconnection ther, now would it. There is no physical disconnection. How is a seperation created then? It's created because of the overwhelming number of other people around. We hide in our numbers. We use the size of the "community" that we believe we are part of to justify avoiding the very community that we delude ourselves into believing we are a part of. The individual sitting in church doesn't hide behind the fact that he nevers sees the new attendee when he sits right next to him in the pew. Of course he sees him. Their legs are touching cause the pew is so crowded! He just pretends that both he and this other individual are part of this big blob of people. He acts like there is no seperation and the lack of seperation eliminates the need to interact. There seems to be no need for interaction when there is no physical disconnection... (but ironically the fact that there is no need means no one will interact, which in turn means that there is a GREAT NEED for interaction. Just as there is a great need for someone to stop and help the individual broken down on the busy Pheonix freeway because the liklihood somone will stop and help him is so low!)<BR/><BR/>Complete irony. It's not the disconnectedness that's the problem. It's the connectedness! The connectedness fosters the seperation. These suburban houses are built almost on top of one another. There's only 4 feet of space between the houses. You can hear everything your neighbor does in his backyard and in his house, even! And yet you've never met him. <BR/><BR/>But somehow the farmer who lives 3 miles from his nearest neighbor knows all of his neighbors and has them over dinner regularly. But isn't the farmer more disconnected from his neighbor? That's exactly right! He's disconnected physically, which creates in him the realization of his disconnection and raises in him a desire to elimimnate this disconnection. The opposite is true of the individual surrounded by millions of people living in close proximity. He is aware of the close physical proximity. Of the absence of disconnection, and so he does everything he possibly can to convince himself of disconnection. <BR/><BR/>The place that needs community the most, is the community that seems to need it the least.The heretichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10975079854569187569noreply@blogger.com