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What, in your perspective, are the dangers of our kids and your kids growing up in this sort of social media world? Well, I think it's like, this is the old phrase, isn't it? If you put a lobster or a frog even into boiling water, it will jump out. But if you slowly boil it, then it doesn't realise it's being boiled.
And I think our kids are being slowly boiled, and they don't realise it. And I went to a conference the other day where they were talking about how babies are going to be chipped, and that mothers and fathers will be allowed to have lower taxes and lower insurance if they allow their babies to be tracked from a health perspective. Because, of course, it will reduce the NHS bill, and of course it will reduce the policing bill, if we know where everyone is. And I think we all have to recognise the fact that we will be sold in what seems to be very rational terms, very economically viable terms, to track our own health, to accept being monitored, in terms of our whereabouts and our physical health.
And I think we need to recognise that that's shit, and that's not good. And I think that the dangers are that, on the one hand, we will lose our freedoms, that I think are very dear at a practical and emotional level, a spiritual level for people, to actually have freedoms. And the other is that we will start to believe our own storytelling and ego. And I think when you talk, Steve, it's really interesting about we are constantly, you know, told to create our own online brands, to curate our own online brands.
You know, I know, perhaps when one of my daughters takes a photograph to go on Instagram, maybe it takes an hour, and she shoots one photograph out of a thousand. That doesn't happen often, but I've seen that happen. And so therefore people think that what they see online is somehow real and true. And we pretend that social media is a window into truth.
And unfortunately, it is a window into artifice. And the more artifice and lack of truth that we pervade and popularise, the more mental health disorders will be created. And I think it's based on another idea, the fact that, you know, people talk about I, and we'll talk about ego, and we'll talk about the people that we are. But I think we need to recognise that we don't exist, by which I mean, the Steve Bartlett or the John Vincents, they're both just constructs.
Or Barack Obama. Barack Obama is just a construct. Barack Obama is a set of stories that have been told, a set of media imagery, media storytelling. And as we think about our own individual identity, it's worth remembering the we that we think exists is based on a whole bunch of myths that we've told ourselves.
So first of all, we're in the car, and someone says, Steve. And then you keep hearing this name, Steve. And you're like, fucking hell, this is getting ridiculous. They keep mentioning this word, Steve.
What is Steve? And eventually you realise, shit, they think that I'm separate from them. That's weird. Of course I'm not separate from them.
But hey, I better start believing it. And then you go to school, and they call out your name in class. And they say, Steve, you put your hand up. That reinforces this idea that you're separate.
And they say, Steve, you've won the history prize. And you go, hey, Steve's got history. Now, whether it's true, half true, or not true, you create a sense of who you are. It's mostly not true.
The Steve that we have in our mind, or the John Vincent that we have in our mind, it's a set of myths, a set of stories that we tell ourselves. And we tell ourselves because we attach identity and constancy to it. What's the danger of us doing that? The danger is that we start to become very unwell, and we stop being happy now.
So if I think about the major lessons, they are, do not seek happiness from a future occurrence. Do not defer happiness to this magical island that exists. Once we arrive at this magical island, we will be happy. And do not associate your happiness with money.
Do not associate it with fame. Do not associate it with recognition from third parties. Because as soon as we put ourselves into a situation where we are deferring happiness into the future, we are clearly off-balanced in the present moment. And if I look at the tribespeople that I meet, certain ones I'd meet in Africa, and ones that my friends have met in Brazil, they are rooted in the present moment.
They are absolutely conscious and present now. And the problem with living your life abstracted online, or abstracted in the future, means that you are off-balance, and you are not getting fulfillment from the now. And the martial art that I do, we're predicated on fulfillment coming from the practice, not from the results of the practice. Not from one day I will win this fight, not one day I will have this glory.
I hear what everybody is asking themselves, which is, how do you be present? I read your Twitter bio, and it says that you're taking a break from Twitter to be more present. So I was going to ask you about that. So how do I be more present in a very, very busy digital world where notifications are bombarding me, and everything is about the future and making plans and schedules and things like this?
So we're talking a bit practically, aren't we? Is that what you mean? Okay, so I think there's a practical element, and then there's a sort of mental element. The mental element is to start by not valuing anything.
So by which I mean, recognize the fact that ultimately, the very act of breathing, the very act of trusting our subconscious processes to drive our immune system, or the process of making sure that we're breathing, only value that. So that will immediately put you into a situation where all you're valuing is the things that are literally within your own body. As soon as you value a prize that you might get, or what a girlfriend might think of you, you are putting yourself in a much worse position from the point of view of your own mental health, and almost act as if you're dead. And I think some people might think it's a bit strange, so I think you're going to have to bear with me here.
But if you say, I am dead, I've died, it allows you to suddenly revalue the things you really then want to value. So if you start with a starting point that says nothing is of value, I am dead, you then start adding back the things into your life that are only the absolutely critical things. And what are those things to you? On the practical side, I would say breathing is the most wonderful way of becoming present, and physical-based meditation.
So some people may have downloaded the Headspace app, or some people might have found that those sorts of things in terms of meditation help. I would say from the point of view of what we've learned in Wing Chun, the physical movement, even literally walking and breathing, and allowing your body and your mind to synchronize and breathe as you do it, something literally as simple as going for a walk and consciously breathing as you do, and walk away from your phone, walk away from any devices, and be in touch with nature. As in, it could be a tree in a park in Manchester, it could be a small bush that you find on the state where you live. But literally, find something, it could be a small frog, it could be a spider, it could be a tree.
But just observe that, and that's a very practical thing that people can do.