There are no spirits in the new wilderness

There is a bleak picture of our future which is painted by neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield. The products are powerful games software and memory capacity in hardware to match, and the market is a nation’s youth. Our young are right in the path of an unstoppable market-force.

When young eyes are glued to a computer screen the baroness warns of a new type of human brain evolving which will be devoid of imagination and not able to relax or reflect normally. She is referring to the rapidly growing number of teenagers and young adults who spend their leisure hours playing computer games. One player could be in Sydney, another in Vancouver and another in Manchester. The three could play together as day moves into night and night into day again - with none noticing the change outside.

Not being aware that day has turned to night! Getting up from the chair only to go to a flushing toilet or to get a sandwich from a refrigerator! Living on the 10th floor behind a door with a number on it! Each succeeding generation has become more disconnected from Mother Earth than the one before it.

Now the market, which is so sanctified by government that it is free to sell as much junk food, alcohol and tobacco as it can to the millions whose health is being harmed by their addiction to these products, has probably brought us up to the ultimate disconnection with Mother Earth. It is a brain which humanity has not seen before and which is generated by rapidly changing situations in front of a stationary observer’s eyes - and it is being generated on a mass scale.

As I close this article imagine with me that scene again

It is a long time ago. There are three girls enjoying the warm sun as they prod the rocks around a bay looking for their contribution to the next community meal. The air and water are pure. There is no litter anywhere. The only sounds are of the girls’ chatter, gently lapping water and the calls of a few birds.

While I can escape into my own Dreamtime, that beautiful place is not totally lost to me.