I welcome you to start living, expressing the whole glory of your soul so that God(s) delight in you!

How do we get from where we are to where we want to be

Life is Now,

the past and future are not alive

We lovingly move towards what we want

or

We fearfully move away from what we don’t want (which brings what we fear to us)

The powerful play goes on an you may contribute a verse…

What will your verse be?

Prompt

Considering the rapid brain growth that occurs during the 1st couple years of life, what are your thoughts about young children playing with smartphones on a regular basis? Have you read any research about this topic? How have the current COVID crises contributed to extra screen time for kids and what might be some of the longitudinal implications of such?

Response

The use of smartphones from a young age establishes a connection that will likely not be broken for the rest of their life. To have access to a phone and the internet and all of the media within that is not something many of us in the modern age are willing to let go of. On top of phone use, TV screens, video games, and virtual reality are all elements to entangle us and our youth in technology.

This coming generation will be raised, taught, and socialized all within screens. As I study psychology I learn the remarkable biological characteristics of humans for the purpose of socialization. Healthy Socialization like an in-person connection is unachievable by technological means.

With all of these potential problems of being so deeply reliant upon technology, we regard the current state of affairs as normal. Every most are accepting of it and few are speaking out against it. Two bad mouth technology is to be a hypocrite. I have an inner battle with technology whether to embrace it and seek out its gems or to banish it and find other uses for my time. The battle is so difficult because based upon this choice I want to go to the extreme of all or nothing. The world is teaching me that I might only have one choice to embrace technology. Numerous actions within society are reliant upon my possession of a smartphone. This number keeps growing as time goes on.

I noticed the damage and addictive nature of screens in my life. I'm a grown man and yet I find it difficult to keep screens under control. I find myself yearning to devote sickening amounts of time to screens. I can only imagine how impressionable screens are to a young generation who is yet to develop defenses for this widely accepted and new drug.

I am aware of the rising need for spaces where people can get away from technology and routine. I am working towards filling this need in this society. Anti technology Positive psychology happy places will be where a properly formed community will thrive.

A Dreamer Manifesting,

Ean Sequoia Jones

"Forward Ever Forward, up and up and up, keep going South, To Greener Pastures. There is no better place for you than where you are, you can do nothing great when your mind is elsewhere."

From my perspective, the electromagnetic radiation damage from phones is negligible to the social implications of technology. The modern age has fewer and fewer people who are worthy of communicating with. Our language has been whitewashed, our literature reduced to text messages, our art has become screensavers. So many crucial elements to a healthy society have been lost. We have traded culture, human interaction, and emotional sympathy for a device that answers all of our questions.

The sci-fi future portrayed in Idiocracy is rearing its ugly head. It no longer seems futuristic but more present day by day. The greatest contributor to the intellectual decay of human beings is the screens of our creation.

A cynic of a half-full glass,

Ean Sequoia Jones

Anxiety Disorders

I have watched many of my peers be overcome by social anxiety with their body language making their feelings clear. It is a matter of perception as to see the signs of anxiety within another. There doesn't seem to be a helpful solution, if you don't mention it the person goes on being anxious and if you mention it they become anxious that you're aware of their anxiety.

Anxiety seems to be sourced by a poor relationship with the future. A person sets expectations for what is to come. By no means are they a fortune teller resulting in an incorrect prediction of the future. Because their expectation was not met they fall into an uncertainty about what is to come. Needing answers for the mystery of the future takes away from the magnificence of the current moment. It is in the current moment that anxiety dissolves when all you have right now there is far less to be anxious about.

Helpful anxiety may occur when you are speaking to somebody you deem as superior. Talking up to this person that seems to hold a higher role than you might fill you with angst. When utilizing this heightened biological response in the body you might experience heightened awareness, increased cognition, and deliberate communication. Your body is aware and preparing you for an event that you deem important.

Unhelpful anxiety seems easier to spot, when anxiety creeps up we can become our own greatest obstacle. Setting expectations that are unreasonable or impossible to obtain. Worrying about the future and projecting failures on yourself that have only occurred in your mind does no one any good.

I have taken notice of the body language associated with anxiety. When I'm in public or around people I search for these signs and use them as gauges within my conversation. If something I say makes someone uneasy I might revisit that subject in more depth so that they understand what I'm trying to convey. I see people's legs bouncing as they shake their leg and release their nervous energy. Some people fiddle with their hands or pick their nose or twirl their hair or scratch their head.

Verbally the words I don't know have become a catch-all for modern communication. These words are crammed into conversation so often that I've become sick and tired of hearing the words I don't know, like, and you know. These are crutches for people that fall short, unable to fully describe what they want to convey. I've noticed many times the words I want to say become bottled up and the longer that goes on without me saying them the more difficult it is to open my mouth and say what's on my mind. It feels as though I may be attacked if I use those words or they're slipping through my fingers like smoke.

Anxiety seems all around everyone battling it and most of them losing. It is rare for me to stumble upon somebody confident, collected and calm. The rarity makes me savor and revel in the times I meet those who have harnessed their anxiety and portray genuine behavior.

A Thinker, A Observer, A Sojourner,

Ean Sequoia Jones

"I just lost another week to worrying"

"You start as nothing and you go back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!

Acute stress disorder and adjustment disorder.

Acute Stress Disorder occurs in patients within 4 weeks of a traumatic event. These patients might experience anxiety, avoidant behavior, or re-experience the event.

Adjustment Disorder is the reaction to a stressful or difficult event. This can come in the form of emotional or behavioral changes.

These are huge topics to dive into as these conditions seem to affect a large portion of the people I interact with daily. Many are stressed with too much piled on their plate. The attributes of the disorders were very familiar in the language I've heard surrounding workaholics and new parents. The modern world is very demanding of our attention as we pile on more and more obligations we can quickly become spread thin. It is a rare occurrence for people to hold their boundaries intact, often caving in for anyone who is adding another obligation onto their plate.

It is a stressful world we live in. One that operates at a pace that is constantly rushing and that speed seems to be increasing as time passes. I have not learned many techniques to cope with stress until my recent semesters of college, most notably was the mindfulness and meditation course at Butte College.

We stress so much more than we have to and much of that has to do with worrying. We think of these futuristic events, scenarios, and outcomes we are hauntingly wrong about our assumptions of the future. That is the reason for most of our futuristic worrying to be needless. To be mindful is to be in the current moment, when you are in the current moment you are less susceptible to the worries of the future and the past.

In my experience, my stress levels diminished when I stopped projecting myself into the future and worked with what I had in the present. I am a rather relaxed and calm person. It is rare for my emotions to get away from me. That doesn't mean that I don't experience stress. It means that I rarely express it. This has it's good and bad as does everything. There are times when my emotions have been bottled up. It is at these times that I turn to my a great many outlets for emotion. These include journaling which is a delightful hobby. In this week's lectures and texts journal was a recommended stress coping technique. I do this frequently and share it with many of those who cross my path.

I have seen great personal growth because of journaling and it has certainly helped me cope with stressful events. I am also an artist so when words seem to fall short of what I want to express I turn to paint. This gives me colors and shapes and forms and shading and meaning to play with in order to feel like I have expressed myself in the ways that allow me to maintain my low-stress lifestyle.

I think that people who are stressed do not have much time to spare on forms of emotional expression which is a shame because they are the ones who need it most. In my experience a simple change to one's lifestyle in which a person sets aside some of their obligations and creates more time within their schedule that they can devote to checking in on their own well-being. Most of the stress-related problems come from not dealing with stress. There are ways to let it go and not carry forward the stresses of the previous day into the next day.

A String of Thought from,

Ean Sequoia Jones

College In-Person During The Covid-19 Pandemic

Written by Ean Sequoia Jones

I am a student of psychology at Butte College in California, I have noticed a great deal of note-worthy behavior among my peers, teachers, and staff. There are posters about Covid guidelines which are good for keeping masks on students, distancing yourself, and the use of hand sanitizer. Beyond this school carries on in its half to three-quarter capacity. I have been at this college before and during this pandemic. The contrast is there however gauging how much has changed is difficult to pin down. There is plenty of evidence for both sides. On one hand, people are holding onto their habitual ways of going about college unwilling to make much change. On the other hand, the college landscape has changed dramatically with most education happening online, restricted socializing, and the absence of student life.

I have begun the endeavor of beginning the Traveling Education Club on campus. I am one of the few clubs holding events on campus where students can interact. It seems like students aren’t missing social interaction, as my club and the cultural unity center are underutilized. Campus seems to be a place where students go for their classes and not much else. Leaving as soon as they are done with their obligations. As for limiting the spread of the virus, this might be a good approach however it has decimated student life that plays a huge role in making the college experience enjoyable.

I am promoting travel for the purposes of reconnecting with nature, broadening the horizon of college minds, and the enrichment of connecting with the land under and around our feet. I hum along through life by asking “what good is this life I have been given if all I do is stand in one place.” This is the motivation that I need to keep a move on and keep moving forward.

People struggle to travel because they are not willing to give the appropriate amount of time. They give a week or so plan and spend lavishly and then promptly return home. It is meant to be an adventure, once you leave a place there is only going forward, coming back is an option for the holidays. Our lives only move forward, so should we.

The pandemic is my focus here, and travel is my role in college. For those who are not as fortunate to escape this stagnant place of college due to obligations, responsibilities, and anchors. It is for you that I write this. For it is far easier to be an outside observer and see the truth in the way things are than to be intimately involved making for blinding bias. The negative claims that you make from the inside seem to revert back to saying them about ourselves when we are a participant in the system in question.

Movies, personification, and sugar coating are all involved in the description of college. It is over-glorified especially when I compare the fake campus life of a multimillion-dollar movie budget to my small and isolated Butte college. This gap in expectation and reality is worthy of a paper all of its own.

The problems and difficulties of the world are both present, and absent from campus, both diminished and exacerbated. Definitive claims escape me, as I see both sides that support and defy my claims. The more I try to know the more I learn that I don’t know.

I am uncertain and so too are my peers, the social playing field is now riddled with walls. Allowing for plenty of hiding places and surprises.

I am hopeful, not narcissistic. I am questioning not doubtful. I know these are “historic times” and yet they wiz by just like every other moment I have come to experience.

He whos mind you temporarily occupied,

Ean Sequoia Jones