Mental Health
Wisdom 2.0
By
Apr 13, 2009 - 5:09:58 PM

Ancient Secrets for the Creative & Constantly Connected


(HealthNewsDigest.com) - We are a nation obsessed with technology—Facebook status updates, Twitter, e-mails between colleagues who sit three feet apart, teenagers compulsively texting (even “sexting”)—and its omnipresence has caused us, ironically, to become less truly connected and creative than we were before. Reuters recently reported that Americans are willing to go longer without friends and sex than they are the Internet. WISDOM 2.0 shifts our focus from what we’re interacting with to how and why we do it.

Modern technology keeps us more updated and connected than our ancestors could have dreamed—and it is also one of our biggest sources of stress. Our constant need for updates and new information leaves us both increasingly educated and increasingly overwhelmed, and we have traded face-to-face contact for the rush of online communication. Utilizing such technologies becomes a compulsive action, rather than a creative process, and the resultant stress impedes the very multitasking and efficiency that the technology was meant to inspire.

With a focus on being consciously rather than constantly connected, WISDOM 2.0 brings the wisdom of Eastern meditative practices to calm the frantic anxiety produced by our Western high-speed technoculture. Author and mindfulness expert Soren Gordhamer offers new ways to interact with technology without reverting into a Luddite, proposing a “middle way” for the modern worker with practical advice, including:

“Logging in” to each moment, in order to get a handle on our to-do list (instead of letting it control us)
What to do when our eyes begin to glaze over from long hours of staring at the computer screen
Practicing “mini-meditation” for five minutes a day to increase focus

Fun, witty, and in sync with contemporary life, WISDOM 2.0 is the book that will guide our interactions with technology into the 21st century.

SOREN GORDHAMER works with individuals and groups on ways to live with less stress and more effectiveness in our technology-rich lives. He has taught classes on stress reduction to such diverse populations as youth in New York City juvenile halls, trauma workers in Rwanda, and to staff at Google's corporate headquarters. The founder of the New York City non-profit Lineage Project, which offers programs to incarcerated teens, Gordhamer has also been involved in creating online tools to help uplift user-generated content, including co-founding an organization that does this called Zooleo. A former project director for Richard Gere's public charity, Healing the Divide, he organized the "Healing through Great Difficulty Conference" with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Soren is also the author of the meditation book, Just Say Om! and has been featured in GQ, Newsweek.com, and other publications. For more on Soren Gordhamer, visit his website at www.sorengordhamer.com. 

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