Addiction: Contagiously unique: Dying to get Offline, but alas!

  

 

 “Greatness adds to the Good & evil begets evil, as simple as that”

 

 One 12 year old kid, who was supposed to enjoy his summer vacations by going out or playing till he drops in the heat, was having a horrible day yesterday, because his mother was not allowing him to play the Xbox (which he was playing for more than few hours already).

 

 He came to me angry with his mom and asked, ‘I am getting bored. I don’t want to go out and play. Can you tell mom to allow me to play on my Xbox so that I can have some fun.’

 

 I guess, this is what has become when I look around me, except for those very few who are still fortunate, under control and in touch with the real world.

 

 That’s when it struck me.

 

 I too have been addicted. I realized that I have become utterly obsessed to the cyber world like millions across the world. Today I am just one among the million less fortunate getting strangled to the today’s ipv4 syndrome – The Internet.

 

 This virtual platform engineered by those who started it as an information sharing platform has gone manifold through inventions & contributions by great pioneers like Al Gore, Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Lawrence G. Roberts, Radia Perlman and few others.

 

But why do I quote the first line that “greatness adds…..”

 

I realized the missing link around that could hold me grounded and keep me engrossed in life that is real.

 

Today, as I scan across my little self-centered murky world, I find all those around fixated to something that is not just contagious, but uniquely contagious, in the sense that, it drives oneself to catch their novel form of addiction on their own.

 

 Surrounded by those either addicted to the till death do us apart yearning for money or those with a deflective state of philosophical bent through religious dose of daily booze or those obsessed with zero value adding life skills of traditional education or the amazingly exasperating bunch of hardcore shopaholics who have today led me to succumb & snail myself into a smaller world owing to sheer utter boredom.

 

 I feel suffocated when I end up nowhere but yet ‘find myself’ in a Mall every other day or worst diluting my already troubled fitness regime sitting in a restaurant that is definitely not helping me regain my good old self.

 

 Why? ‘coz today I am tired of again and again planning a spontaneous tour to a better place or at least a real world around and unfortunately cannot also find,  ‘who can take on ideas to connect to the real world’ & initiate an adventurous outing may be?

 

I keep trying to reinvent by being innovative and planning to reach out to the outer and real world and sadly find myself in a restaurant or compulsorily on the almost only way to stay connected with each other today – Telephone or even worst in a bar or a again a mall.

 

The value addition per se seems to be missing at every stage as addiction has caught up with specific religious routines of not thinking beyond the monotonously small world around.

 

 With so much of information explosion, I am today finding the spontaneity missing around me so much that I chose to get addicted to a virtual world with just a couple of hardware and loads of unnecessary junk from all across the globe.

 

 As I drift towards spending shockingly gifted long & empty weekends addicted to the virtual galleria, the more I realize the emptiness of adventure and spark with zest and energy around.

 

 The more I update myself on Web3.0 today, the more I feel sorry for the world of tomorrow that ‘might’ be a part of these uniquely contagious addiction syndromes over a period of time.

 

 Now that I have done some keying in for the day, let me get back to Orkut or Facebook where I can meet real people, ahem!

 

 Can’t believe, I am actually dying to get offline!

 

 What say?

 

 Let me know your views

 

 Ananth V – ‘(Still Online)’

 

 

Image Source: AnanthV