Living in the Virtual World

This might sound silly, but have you ever give a thought about how people now are living in a virtual world? I did. Core example:


I was recently sitting in a cafe with my boyfriend in the lobby of a newly opened coffee shop, having a cup of machiato. While waiting for our meal come, i watched a couple pass our table. They had just come out from one of those shops together and were holding hands, but the woman was talking to someone else on the cell phone. It was a weird sight. Here was a woman engaging in conversation with someone who wasn't there while holding hands with the man she was ignoring. It set me to thingking about how people spend their time in an increasingly "virtual" world, one in which our immediate experiance of the moment is being overtaken by gadgets.


I'm not planning to be the Dalai Lama nor Zen Master, but I did sometimes thingking about Life and Living, such as "what it is to be alive in this world without gadget or other virtual thingies, like how those monks living in Lhasa, what was it like?"
And my answer is: in the 21st century, dwelling in that timeless will take a lot more effort.


Just a random thought from my mind. This has nothing to do with Zen.