Mobile Technology and The White Rabbit

Walking through the mall, I suddenly come face to face with the White Rabbit.

Part of a window display, he is dressed in his waistcoat and holds his pocket watch. Although glass separates us and I am not able to hear him saying, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”, I know he is inviting me to explore a new rabbithole.

As I stare at him, the White Rabbit suddenly looks a little more familiar. I look around me and see countless people holding their mobile devices and checking them every few seconds. He is certainly fitting in with the crowd.

Upon further inspection, I discover that he has more similarities with many mobile device holding humans than I had first noticed. He too is deeply affected by the technology he carries.

Will he not leave one in mid-sentence, if glancing down yet again, he suddenly takes note of what his hand-held device is saying, and then feels he needs to get to where he needs to be? Does his fear of not being on time suggest that he too is rather afraid of being left behind in a fast moving world? Does he not become rather anxious if he is prevented from doing what he is totally engaged in?

Despite all this, he is a guide to Alice (a Greek word meaning truth), and in her story his presence helps to move the narrative forward.

He leads Alice down the rabbit hole. He symbolizes her quest for knowledge. Whenever during her adventures she is feeling rather desperate, he shows up, and Alice is able to continue.

Upon my return home, I return to the piece “Linda in Wonderland”, which at the time I wrote it was a playful exercise. I note this sentence: 

All of a sudden, a white rabbit with iphone in hand, alarm going off rather loudly, attracted Alice’s attention.

The decision is made. I will explore the possibility of the white rabbit symbolizing the use of mobile technology. If that is the case it would make sense that so many mobile phone covers I have seen have white ears! 

Since the start of this millennium, a standard mobile device has gone from being no more than a simple two-way pager to being a mobile phone, GPS navigation device, an embedded web browser and instant messaging client, and a handheld game console. Wikipedia.

Together, by answering the call of mobile technology, we have embarked upon a collective hero’s journey down a rabbithole which has landed us in cyberspace. 

In the here2here space we find ourselves in as we communicate with each other no matter where we are or what time of the day it is, we face new tasks and trials that we as a species have never encountered before. To help us navigate the challenges we face in this new territory, we certainly need mentors. Should we survive, a gift awaits us and hopefully we will choose to use it for the greater good.

Exactly where we are on the journey at the moment is difficult to tell. I suspect that we are currently identifying with Alice when in “Through the Looking Glass” she finds herself in a maze-like garden as she tries to find her way home.

The Maze Tower, a building on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai

‘I should see the garden far better,’ said Alice to herself, ‘if I could get to the top of that hill: and here’s a path that leads straight to it - at least, no it doesn’t do that -’ (after going a few yards along the path, and turning several sharp corners), ‘but I suppose it will at last. But how curiously it twists! It’s more like a corkscrew than a path! Well, this turn goes to the hill, I suppose - no, it doesn’t! This goes straight back to the house! Well then, I’ll try it the other way.’

 

This QR code for my website looks rather like a maze.  We can point our phones, scan in codes or tags, and be redirected to web addresses. The potential use of such technology is mind-blowing. We need however, to be careful that we do not  get lost in the maze!

Each web address we land in has countless corridors of cyberspace - links to links to links. Our smartphones are beginning to keep track of our personal data and anticipate the information we will need in a particular situation. Mindful use of the technology we carry is certainly called for.

“We need to make it a practice to continually be aware of our relationship to technology and the place it holds in our lives. Then we can use it consciously, rather than automatically. This has always been true when a new communication technology emerges. We go through a process of learning how it can connect us to our loved ones and help us mange our lives, and how it can distract us.” A User’s Guide to Living well in Screenworld

There is an excellent interview which shows that the mentors we need on our hero’s journey in the world of mobile technology are already coming to the fore: 

My interview on wisdom and technology with the super cool @ariannahuff is now up: http://t.co/67vZBM8qZf #wisdom2conf

— Soren Gordhamer (@SorenG) June 22, 2013

In cyberspace, it is not unusual that some of our mentors and guides can be apps.  I have started incorporating the “GPS for the Soul” into my mindfulness practice and am also investigating “Insight Timer”.

"Amazed" from "Corridorsofcyberspace"

At one point in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”,

Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one: so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low timid voice, ‘If you please, sir -’

The White Rabbit, bold and blunt at times, often seems to come up with what he considers to be wise sayings. If Alice could ask him for help I decide that I will too. I pick up my iphone and address it as not as sir, but as Siri!

“Siri, are you the White Rabbit?”

Siri replies, “We were talking about you, not me.”

“Do you carry a pocket watch?”

“I’m sorry Linda. I’m afraid I can’t answer that”

“Have you visited Wonderland?”

“I don’t understand ‘Have you visited wonderland’. But I could search the web for it.”

“I think you are the White Rabbit.”

“If you insist.”

Linda in Wonderland

The calendar year was 2012, one hundred and fifty years since Lewis Carroll first began writing “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.  Sitting next to a stream, Alice was still pretty much aware of the fact that even though she sometimes thought she knew who she was, she was also conscious of having changed several times over the years, not to mention since that morning. Bored, she had peeped into her sister’s book, but it had no pictures or conversations. Alice found that weird.

All of a sudden, a white rabbit with iphone in hand, alarm going off rather loudly, attracted Alice’s attention. Following the sound of the alarm playing one of her favorite hits,  Alice ran after him. He passed a digital stream, and as he popped down a rabbit-hole Alice followed him further, only to find herself soon tumbling into what seemed to be a very deep well.

 

Whether the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, Alice did not know. What she did notice after a while were the symbols on the sides of the well depicting the various portals available to those entering this world of wonder. 

She did not know it yet, but by clicking on a link, the traveler in cyberspace can be transported from one place to another. By downloading an app, the user is offered tools and information unheard of before. 

As she fell, Alice remembered what she had learnt at school that week.  Her teacher, a forward thinking wonderful lady, had introduced her class to mindfulness. Sitting in a circle each morning the children focused on their breathing and the feelings they were experiencing. Alice decided that this was as good a time as ever to put this all into practice, and so, taking a deep breath, she allowed herself to be fully aware of herself, her feelings, her muddled emotions and her surroundings, which were rather strange to say the least.

She felt she must have reached the centre of the earth when she suddenly landed with a thump. She thought she spotted the white rabbit but he soon disappeared out of sight. 

Alice found herself in a room with a little table.  On it lay a tablet. To examine it she picked it up, swiped its screen and squealed with delight at what she found. There were stories with pictures that were interactive when she touched them.  There were conversations going on in real time! There were maps and dictionaries, newspapers and magazines. She could play games and even draw using her finger.

She noticed a camera and a special app and before long was taking pictures of herself which transformed her at once into someone tall, someone short, someone with a huge funny face and then someone all squashed up. She squealed with delight.

Swiping the screen yet again she found an app called Instagram. She realized that she had not landed in the centre of the earth, but was somehow in all places at once, as she watched photos from all over the world appear on her screen in real time. This was truly here2here! People commented on these photos and she noticed that many of the comments said Linda!!!

Linda? She thought her name was Alice! But then anything was possible when time was no longer linear and she felt herself so close to the other and the other felt as she.

To find out more about who she could possibly now be, she clicked on wikipedia to discover that the name Linda might be derived from the same root as the linden tree, with a German and ultimately Celtic root.  The image of the tree is often used to indicate a gentle personality. 

Alice was confused but read on. Linda could come from the “Celt Lindworm”, another variation of the mythical concept know as the ouroboros, the serpent biting its own tail. The ouroboros represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life. More worlds of wonder were possibly awaiting her, whether she be Alice or Linda or whoever. 

Muchalinda was also the name of a snake-like being who protected the Buddha from the elements after his enlightenment.

The name Linda in Xhosa means “wait” and that perhaps made a little sense. Perhaps if she waited long enough it would all become clear to her.

This was getting curiouser and curiouser, until for now at least, it all suddenly made sense.

Linda was also used in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese to mean beautiful, pretty or cute.  People on Instagram were indicating that they liked a particular photo!!!

Alice looked up and saw the Mad Hatter laughing at her. She was not sure whether time had stopped or it had been transcended. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Cheshire Cat smiling.

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When starting this website, it was my intention to explore the concept of here2here through word and image and thereby promote a shared vision of diversity within unity. My blog and my presence on twitter are, and share, my explorations through word. To explore here2here through the use of image I have recently entered the world of Instagram.

I often feel like Alice, as a world of everyday happenings, memories and creativity appears on my screen in real time. In the gallery, “Some Instagram Pics”, you can see some of the images I have shared. If of course, you are on Instagram you can see more of these pics there. If not you can follow them here.

The image is a powerful tool and one that I believe can assist in an opening of the heart to compassion. 

 

We live in wonderful times. Wonder is there when we stop to see it. What is more, modern technology is making it possible to share these moments if we so choose.

I end with one such example. On New Year’s Eve, the Burj Khalifa, lit up with fireworks.  Standing on my balcony directly opposite the Burj Khalifa, overwhelmed at one stage by tears, I witnessed an event of beauty. You may not have been with me, but in a sense you are as I share with you a video of the event made possible through moving imagery and the world of youtube. Take a few minutes to step into this wonderland.