Dear Diary,

Remember the days of the hot wind ripping through your hair as you sped down a big hill on your BMX? Remember closing your eyes every now and then as you made your descent, braving the risk of hitting a pothole at the wrong angle and colliding with the asphalt? You let go of the handlebars, occasionally, something that, if she had seen you do, your mother would have grounded you for a week. You rode your bike like the speed demon that you thought you were, oblivious to the rest of the world, in a state of utter exhilaration. Nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and everything to experience. That bike took you to places that were not only real but also to those places in your mind that you dreamed. You do remember those places, don’t you?

Fast-forward a generation.

Give a kid the option between having his own bike, his own means of transportation, or owning a television that will ensure that he is never in harm’s way since he will become one with the couch. Give him the choice to go outside, look at the nature that we are lucky to still have surround us given our propensity to squander our natural resources, or to hook up to the television where he can be transported virtually into a world created by adults and requires no more imagination on your child’s part than staring at a box.

Do we really give our kids a choice, though, between a bike or a video game or television? Look at the way adults run their lives, setting the examples. Who has time to actually ride that bike down hills now? Time is money and we have to make more money, more money than we used to, more money than our parents, more money than our siblings, and even more money than our neighbors. We cannot afford to take time from making money to ride a bike, to look further than the space that we occupy. Speaking of the space we occupy, it has to be big, it has to scream, “This is me! I own this! This is mine!” This space includes our houses, cars, and our own bodies. How will the world recognize us if we aren’t screaming at them to take a look, take us in, envy our status, want what we want since what we want has to be what is wanted by all?

So we make more money, push more toys on ourselves and onto our families out of greed as well as the shame that we have to work so hard to provide what is “needed”. Our kids do not even have to ask for the latest gadget that keeps them indoors because you have already bought it for them in anticipation. You want them indoors, where the climate is controlled and they are safe from the dangers of the world. After all, how can the world “get to them” if they are never actually in it? We will replace this world and all of its problems with a world that can be controlled by it creators and manipulated by the many hands that have bought it. What could be better?

Life is not on a screen, it is not to be manipulated by anyone other than the person who was born. Life is not a series of events that can be coldly calculated, with levels of achievement that will bring you to a final level that allows you to “win”. It cannot be paused or have the channel changed for something better, something more exciting with a better cast of characters. There is nothing better than to live a life, to see the world without the vertical lines cast from the screen, to be a part of the grand scheme of things.

Remember looking forward to getting off of the school bus and jumping on your bike, ready to explore the same places that you saw the day before? Remember the daylight suddenly disappearing, another day over, a sense of dread of having to return home rushing through you as you went up that hill that earlier had given you so much joy? This was the world and you knew it, you saw it, you felt it. There was something outside of you and you saw it. It was real and you looked forward to it.

It's still there, and you've been away too long. 

~Anonymous.