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BE
HEAR NOW
by Frank
Forencich
 Question
from the audience: "What do you
think about when you're running?"
Answer: "I think about running."
- Chris McDougall, author of Born to
Run
Here's a "what if?" scenario
for you:
What if you woke up one day and discovered
that the sensations you were experiencing
in your eyes, ears, nose, and skin didn't
match up with the physical reality around
you? Wouldn't you find that condition
disorienting and disturbing? And what
if that disconnected experience continued
for a long period of time? Wouldn't
you begin to feel alienated from the
world? And ultimately, wouldn't that
disconnect begin to make you, quite
literally, crazy?
And, to come at it from the other
direction, isn't it the case that one
of the primary goals of physical and
performance training is to make sensation
congruent with the environment in which
we work and play? Isn't it essential
that we sense and perceive the world
as it is? Don't athletes and other high
performers spend years, even decades
trying to fine tune their nervous systems
to the subtle qualities of their environments?
So what then are we to make of the
epidemic of sensory distortion brought
about by portable music players, now
in widespread, almost universal use
by exercisers? What are we to make of
the fact that millions of people now
spend a considerable portion of their
days in profound sensory disconnect
with the world around them?
This is no trivial question; the implications
of this kind of behavior are immense.
We are talking about billions of hours
of human attention each year, directed
away from the world as it is. What if
those billions of hours were spent in
direct sensory connection with the world?
How would our consciousness and behavior
change?
Some observers have looked at this
audio-electronic disconnect between
sensation and reality and dubbed it
schizophonia. This word may
be new to you, but I can guarantee that
you haven't heard the last of it; this
conversation is going to become increasingly
commonplace in years to come.
Schizophonia,
of course, is a play on the word schizophrenia,
that notorious mental illness marked
by a distorted sense of reality, disintegration
of the thought process, bizarre delusions
and auditory hallucinations. Of course,
it would be foolish to suggest a causal
connection between schizophonia (the
act of wearing an iPod while running)
and schizophrenia (the mental illness),
but the parallels are just a little
too close for comfort. After all, if
you've been wearing an iPod consistently
for months or years, you already are,
in a very real sense, disconnected from
reality and your body. You may not yet
be experiencing the profound symptoms
of delusion and hallucination that characterize
full-blown schizophrenia, but you are
clearly out of contact with the world.
And even if you do manage to get your
heart rate up and condition your musculoskeletal
system, you still cannot claim to be
"fit," especially if the word
"fit" implies a close relationship
with the world at large.
meet the schizophonics
So, if schizophonia is the general
term describing the disconnect between
audio reality and piped-in sensation,
individuals who practice this behavior
must be described as schizophonics.
Not only are schizophonics disconnected
from their physical experience while
running, they're also cut off from the
people around them, lost in their own
worlds of sound. Nothing says "I'm
not here" better than plugging
the earbuds into your head. Nothing
says "leave me alone" more
effectively than wearing an iPod. If
you've ever tried to have a conversation
with a schizophonic, you know the challenge;
they're nodding their heads, but you're
never really sure if they're actually
paying attention to the words coming
out of your mouth.
Schizophonics often claim that they
need the music to provide the necessary
motivation to work out, or go for a
run. But this begs an obvious question:
if you really need an artificial stimulus
to provide the psychological drive for
your workout experience, wouldn't you
be better off choosing some form of
movement that actually generates pleasure
in and of itself? If you need artificial
stimulus to get your body moving, maybe
you're in the wrong sport.
There's another question that we also
must ask at this point: Would any wild
animal voluntarily wear a device that
pumped substitute sensory stimulation
into its nervous system? Unlikely. Wild
animals are smart enough to know that
their very survival depends on tight
integration between sensory experience
and what the military calls "facts
on the ground." That, after all,
is one of the main reasons that animals
- both human and non-human - have a
nervous system in the first place. When
we run with artificial audio, we pay
disrespect to an incredibly elegant
system that has been hundreds of millions
of years in the making.
the death of
the monotask
Schizophonia is rapidly becoming one
of the most dramatic and potentially
destructive forms of multi-tasking in
the modern world. Human performance
experts are united in their cautions
against multitasking in the workplace,
but their warnings are usually directed
against commonplace disconnects such
as checking email while talking on the
phone.
In contrast, wearing an iPod while
running creates a radical disconnection
between body and environment, at the
very time when attention is essential,
not only for safety and injury-resistance,
but for quality of movement and experience.
Remember, running is a skill event that
demands attention to the subtle nuances
of sensation and motor control. If we
treat it as a mindless, attentionless
event to be simply endured, we'll be
more prone to injury and poor results.
My martial art sensei
would be appalled by the proliferation
of music players in the world of physical
training. For him, and for many other
teachers of the transformative arts,
the whole point of the physical exercise
is to enter into a complete experience
with full attention. In the martial
arts, this quality is known as zanshin,
but we find the same emphasis on highly-focused
training in all sorts of disciplines,
from dance to medicine to academics.
If you want to do something well and
be transformed in the process, you've
got to give yourself completely to the
experience. In contrast, the iPod heaps
disrespect on the training process and
trivializes it. The message it reflects
is simple: I find this activity boring
and I need to be entertained.
It's not just running, athletics,
or martial art by the way. Full engagement
in process is now becoming the preferred
practice for transformation and performance
at every level, a point made clear by
Jim Loehr in his landmark book, The
Power of Full Engagement. The formula
for improved performance is simple:
high contrast living. When resting,
rest deeply; when engaged, engage completely.
If you're not going to devote all your
resources to a process, you can't expect
to get much out of it.
the color green
Our discussion of schizophonia goes
well beyond the disconnection of individual
mind/bodies, and tells us something essential
about the larger human-earth relationship.
In an era in which almost everyone claims
to be an environmentalist, we are apt
to wonder: Who is actually walking the
walk? What are we to conclude about
the environmental credentials of people
who intentionally disconnect themselves
from their environment with a technological
device?
Some will say that the iPod is a harmless
entertainment tool of minimal impact,
but in fact, intentional sensory disconnection
is the antithesis of green. Symbolically
at least, schizophonia is an act of
profound environmental ignorance, even
disrespect. If you really want to save
the world, you have to know the world.
And how are we to know the world if
we intentionally pipe substitute stimulation
into the very center of our brains?
So, my sisters and brothers, the time
has come to ditch the Pod (and the shoes,
if you can manage it). If you hate running
and need a crutch to get you through
the miles, stop running! Find something
you're passionate about and enter into
that with your entire being. Pay the
process the respect it deserves. Be.
Hear. Now.
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