VIRTUAL-ITIS: A Socratic Dialogue with a Modern Christian.
The dialogue takes place during sleep, in a dream.
Only the soul can experience an absence that is presence,
an emptiness that is filling, a longing that is an enjoying. Such an experience occurs when the soul
awakens and comes alive in the remembrance of Selfless Love. Today this experience is more and more absent to us and as a result our hungers have no meaning. We fill ourselves obliviously with empty
data, factoids, and bytes. Diversions, distractions,
multiply like virtual loaves. Only in the silent, empty desert will the Mystery
of Selfless Love once again dazzle us.
Voice: Why do you sleep so
fitfully? What bothers you?
Modern Christian: What? Who are you? Am I
dreaming?
V: You may call me Socrates. I was sent to help you know yourself better. Yes, you are dreaming,
but the dream is real, more so than the daytime hours you spend walking around in a fog.
MC: How can I be sure?
Maybe I am having a nightmare, or going crazy.
MC:
Well, I am having a hard time making decisions. I can’t sort out my thoughts and
feelings and come to a conclusion. One
day one thing seems good to me, the next day something else. Why can’t I be as
sure of myself as I used to be?
V: You may have a common yet
unrecognized virus that infects much of the world's population, a virus called
“virtual-itis.” This is a sickness that comes from a loss of
contact with reality. How serious the sickness is depends on how far removed you are from reality. May I ask you some questions? I need to see how badly this virus affects you.
MC: What harm can it do?. Ask away. What would you like to know?
V: Does your mind feel like
a cargo crate or like your stomach?
MC: I don’t understand. My mind doesn't feel like anything. Not like a
cargo crate, not like my stomach. What are you getting at?
V: A cargo crate can be empty or full. But it is indifferent to both emptiness and fullness. It is neither happy nor unhappy over what is placed in it. Like a cargo crate, your stomach can be empty.
But the stomach knows it is empty. That’s
why you feel hungry! So the stomach is not
indifferent to being empty. Nor is the
stomach indifferent to what gets put in it. It wants tasty food that nourishes it, food that contains the
vitamins, minerals, carbs, and proteins which the rest of the body needs. And after it gets that stuff, the stomach knows what
to do with it. It knows how to break it
down and what to send where. The stomach finds satisfaction in fullness and frustration in emptiness.
MC. Okay, okay, enough already! I see what you mean. But I thought the mind was like a blank
slate. Isn't that how
the mind works, something like a slate on which you write information? I thought being a brainy, knowledgeable
person meant you had gathered up a lot of information and knew how
to use the information to get what you wanted.
V: That would reduce the brain pretty much to a
computer memory bank. But the brain is
more like a smart cat playing with a ball of string. The cat pokes it,
rolls it, runs around it, pounces on it, backs off and leaves it there,then jumps on it again. Of course, if it is a mouse or a canary instead of a ball of string, when the cat is finished playing with it, he finally eats
it. That’s the way the mind works. It
plays with an idea, looks at it from one angle and then another, compares it to
this and that. The mind questions and pokes the idea and rolls it around before
deciding whether or not to leave it be or eat it. Sometimes the mind will swallow it.
And once your mind swallows the idea, it also knows what to do with
it.
MC: Sorry, you are losing me. What are you getting at?
V: Just as the stomach cannot use any old thing
we put into it, the mind is meant to take in truth. The hunger of the mind is
for truth. The mind is nourished by truth, not just by information or data or
factoids. Today we seem to have
forgotten that a mind cannot be healthy without truth. We think just having a
crate full of data is enough to fill us.
MC: I see what you're saying.
What food is to the stomach, truth
is to the mind. How about this: two people discussing an idea are like your two cats, playing with a
ball, rolling it around, back and forth to one another. Isn't that a good image
for two persons having a discussion or a brainstorming session or even a
debate? As they toss the idea around they clarify it, see it differently, and
maybe help it acquire depth they didn’t know was there before. That’s
what you mean by the mind being like a playful curious cat, and not just a
blank slate, right?
V: Yes. You do begin to see! Healthy people have that kind of mind that is
inquisitive, searching, and hungry for truth. They are interested in learning
more and more about the truth they already know. Unhealthy people have a mind like a crate or slate,
they don’t care what is inside or written on it, nor have a sense of what to do
with what they have inside. The truth to them is just a lot of data or information. You, on the other hand, may get healthy
by talking to me.
MC. By healthy or unhealthy I
presume you are referring to this virus you are talking about? Virtual-itis?
V. Yes. A crate type mind is one symptom of
the disease. Another is a spectator
mentality. That means you...
MC. Wait a minute! I don't buy everything you have said. It is your opinion, and you have a right to it. But I see things a different way. I have a different value system. You don't have any right to impose your way of seeing on me. I am free to see things the way I want therm to be.
V. No you are not. You are free to accept reality or deny it. But once you deny reality, you separate yourself from truth and start living by self deception.
MC. This conversation is over! Go away! Sneak into my head some other day. I don't want to play mind games with you any more right now.
MC. Wait a minute! I don't buy everything you have said. It is your opinion, and you have a right to it. But I see things a different way. I have a different value system. You don't have any right to impose your way of seeing on me. I am free to see things the way I want therm to be.
V. No you are not. You are free to accept reality or deny it. But once you deny reality, you separate yourself from truth and start living by self deception.
MC. This conversation is over! Go away! Sneak into my head some other day. I don't want to play mind games with you any more right now.
