Come on! Get Natural, Already.

So, you need something to cheer you up.
All right.

You have a desire to be entertained.

Okay !
What would you do for that?

"Gosh, I will die of this boredom.", says Samantha, "I need something for the evening to pass."

What Samantha does is open her laptop, get some snacks and start watching movies. Her evening passes great. She is out of boredom,most importantly she is entertained.

But this keeps on continuing for the following week, then a month,  and before she knows a year has passed just literally watching movies or TV series. Along with that, tones of hours after midnight on her smartphone stuck in social media and funny videos.

Do you really feel, this is the best entertainment. I mean, really !

Yeah, you will be engaged. It is necessary. But mindless hours just doing nothing but gluing your eyes to a screen, of a TV or a computer or a phone. 

I too have been in such stages before. One day I realised, this cannot continue anymore. It is too much.

What did I miss all those times I spent popping out my eyes?

I missed a lot; a lot to say.

Our lives have become virtual more and more as decades are passing by. We have forgotten what it is to be outside the confined spaces of our cosy bedrooms.

One fine day, I was just as usual hooked on to my laptop. An impulse made me got out of my door to check on if my shirt had dried up in this rainy weather. It has been raining incessantly for last four days. Previously it was during nights and for the last two days even the days are not spared by the eager clouds.

I open my door an a gush of cool breeze blowing on my face and hair. 

I was like, "WOW, so peaceful!"

The coldness of the wind literally made me forget everything at that moment. My legs automatically took me to the balcony and my eyes glanced at the trees all around. I smelled the air. It was so fresh with a smell of the sand that makes you feel good, while raining. 

The rain was gradually getting quieter. The thumping of the rain drops on the asbestos canopy was sounding lighter. Yet it was feeling peaceful. There was almost no human noise. My ears were able to pick up sounds of water flowing down the channels and chirping of birds in their nests. 

I was being presented the music of nature. No requirement of adjusting the volume or adding a sub woofer. Just closing the eyes and taking in all the sounds that mother nature was providing.

I could not count the days or months gone, when I had experienced this same feeling. I had forgotten  to enjoy the gifts of nature. All we need to do is enjoy her givings. She gives us without any favour or wishing for returns. 

From then on I made a point to enjoy nature instead of constantly sitting on my couch, compute on my lap and and a bowl of potato chips by my side. This way had to go. I could not let it go all away at once. So I made it gradually lessen week by week. Of course we cannot totally avoid it and it is not also good to do that. Just like an ice cream once or twice a week, we need electronic audio-visual entertainment.

Here's how I started it.   

First of all getting up in the morning, the first thing we do is squint our eyes and try to unlock our smartphone! Yes, we do that, all of us. It is the first thing in the morning routine. We check our newsfeed in social media or instant messages.

What I did, was keep the phone far away from the bed. I put  the  toothbrush on my teeth and started walking the lobby to and fro. I had the opportunity to look into the pleasant morning and inhale the freshness of air and purify my lungs! We used to do this, regularly, in the age of "absence of smartphones" Believe me, this new-found-old-routine helps a lot, both mentally and physically. Just try it tomorrow morning and you will know the difference. 

After the usual chores, I did was not open  my laptop and instead start getting ready for a morning walk. You just need to put on your trendy track-pants and Tees and those expensive looking sports shoes and start walking or even jogging for the next one hour or at-least thirty minutes among the the nature trails of my neighbourhood. Trust me, its is  hard to do everyday, but once you start getting used to doing this, you will feel definitely revitalised.

And finally after dressing up for the day ahead, I checked my smartphone. In those four hours, I was entertained by nature in the form of relaxation of mind and warming of the body and even soul. It is a grand way of entertaining. I prevented myself form the smartphone mania for at-least those four hours in the morning taking in much better dose of entertainment.

Through out the day or at lunch, instead of browsing some funny videos, you can do is have lunch at an open space with people. you can also stroll the building or the garden and walkways, look around people- who are also part of mother nature, and  the beautiful scenery nature has to offer.

Talking to people actually face to face - not texting or chatting over devices - really helps. It is a part of the source of entertainment that nature provides us free of cost. It is therapeutic. I have a very dear friend in the other corner of the country who does not prefer online chatting at all.

We call him by his shortened name Loki (Lokendra). That was in 2008. Soon in 2011 the first Thor movie released, we were astound. Although he shares his name with Loki but he is the opposite of the God of Mischief! He is a good person and a true friend. 

He has inspired me to converse to more and more people directly. He suggested me that we talk over phone and not do texting. He says, "there is no fun in texting, the real fun is talking to each other." In fact he barely replies my messages, that is his way of making me converse with him over phone.

He tells me we should all do this. Or else a day will come, or rather it as already arrived that we are loosing confidence to talk directly to our friends. We cannot face each other. We are getting comfortable communicating each other via electronic media. This is alarming.

And Loki's style has helped me really a lot. I have started calling more friends over phone. I started talking more to a childhood friend rather than all the time texting for this same reason. I do online chat with her, but the phone call is also part of the conversation. 

I fondly call her by the shortened name I gave her, Bannoo. Some call her as Banas, another shortened version of Banasmita. But I prefer Bannoo, exclusively.

You know, when you call your friends by a sweet name, you will feel more close. It really strengthens our friendship and creates a strong bond. And this did not happen in school but much later. We laugh at our jokes, express opinions about life-lessons related topics and we have jammed really. Bannoo even provides me with tips about how a girl thinks and about their concepts and opinions about boys!

Sometimes I feel like I am back to those teenage days when falling in love was almost mandatory. When at least one crush was needed. It was like a pressure. But those days are long in the past. This era is different. Bannoo is my female-friend who inspires and pushes me to try find a beautiful girl to fall in love with !

This is very healthy and important to keep in touch with people we care about. I and Banno laugh over funny instances and those old memories over phone. We get entertained. We get happy. We all should start talking to friends and family more than ever.

Whenever I am in my hometown of Guwahati, most of the times I make it a point to meet my school friends. If needed I fix the date and venue. And when we gather together, I put my smartphone in my jeans pocket. And I have seen when one does that, the others, at-least half of the group also avoids their smartphone and start the actual live-chatting and howling and laughing.

You do not need to tell them to put down their phones. It is a natural and contagious. You try it the next time. Of course you cannot help them from taking food picture and uploading on social media ! But the amount of time spent bowing down the neck to the phone display gets reduced gradually. Our heads are up and onto each others eyes more. This is a start and will soon get better.

So being natural and close to how nature has moulded us to get entertained is far better than the artificial and virtual modes of entertainment. We need both of them. But artificial must never eclipse the natural way.

It sounds old school, of course; but you see, the mode of entertainments in the past centuries were much better for a sound body and healthy heart. Go to a Broadway show or some local theatre groups instead of the TV sometimes. Appreciate the talents of the performances by the theatre people. Attend a musical event instead of constantly plugging your headphones onto your ears. Go to a food joint or a bakery,where your friend works as a chef. Talk about food with them. Just do some conversation which is  natural !

I am a gadget aficionado. I love technology. I want to buy all the gadgets that tech has to offer and will offer in the future. Yes I do. But I have also realised the essence of the entertainment that mother nature provides us. That natural  entertainment needs to be an integral part of our lives on a daily basis.

So more and more from now onward, get out of you comfy sofa and run to the world outside. See for yourself the truth about nature. Talk more often to buddies and help other people out there become more active in the real-actually-existing-natural-social-media called mother nature !

Hope to meet you soon, and yes I mean personally; face to face, one day !

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