I would rather rest than use my smartphone

Whether it's walking down the street or riding the subway, bus, or bullet train, the sight of people using their smartphones or tablets seems ubiquitous, the majority at a glance. Sometimes, I get a glimpse of what someone next to me is looking into. Usually the person is playing games; watching videos, often viral videos recommended by YouTube; reading the news, comics, or ebooks; using Instagram; or texting.

When I took the KTX bullet train from Seoul down to Busan this weekend, I could see a boy watching videos on a tablet, likely arranged by his father because the father was just going through the routine of raising his son. While seeing people on their devices is a daily occurrence, for some reason, witnessing this episode made me conscious of why I use technology out of necessity than pleasure.

I've recently come to strongly suspect that the entire basis of human civilization and existence is a matrix. The reason for my suspicion is best summarized by the following passage from my December 21, 2022 HotNonPorn.com post "In The Matrix, kung fu is what matters to me":

Life as a human is brutal. The human is the only animal that must grow food to eat. All other animals do not farm and they do just fine foraging food from nature. Humans require clothing, housing, and transporation, for which the the modern human significantly alters nature. Animals have clothing and transportation accompanying their natural form, and they provide housing for themselves with minimal modification to nature. Humans, to provide for such necessities if they can't do it themselves, need money, which has to be an utterly alien concept to animals. Let's not even get into technology such as computers or smartphones, which can be useful but often addict the user.

Due to human reliance on tools to carry out even routine tasks like dressing, even foraging human societies are matrixian, though by matrixian standards, they are the closest to nature. If even humans with by far the most harmonious relations with nature are matrixian, then surely are so-called "advanced" societies which rely on digital technology as computers, smart devices, Internet of things, artificial intelligence, and satellites.

If I were to be preoccupied with using computers, smartphones, tablets, and technology, I would become a matrixian max. I would be hooked on gossip, games, movies, TV, comics, ebooks, the news, and music, and hypnotized by the visual and acoustic signals emanating from them. Rather than be centered and guided by my inner voice, I would be influenced by overt and subliminal programming.

To be human is to be matrixian. Due to our having to take vast resources from nature but inability to blend in with it, I say that even the individual biological human is inherently matrixian. So for all the intellect, art, architecture, and technology it is capable of providing, human civilization is matrixian without a shadow of a doubt. Never mind the political, legal, economic, monetary, commercial, agricultural, military, and theological systems controlling us; even our societal, communal, familial, gastronomical, artistic, and intellectual traditions are at the least unnaturally distorted.

A truly natural creature reaps the abundance of nature. Just observe the natural world, or even your pets and homegrown plants. A natural being does not need the complex intellect that has given birth to the control matrix abomination. Such an intellect only hinders nature from doing its job.

There has to be a better way. Even if we would remain a matrixian biological entity, there has to be a way to maximize nature within that construct. That's why I'm usually resting and relaxing on bus or train rides.

Because a fresh spirit and untainted mind are needed to connect with nature despite matrixian interference.