Human beings have always found paths to distraction
- By Wang Yong
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, January 23, 2015
To a large extent, we care less about a phubber's life security (as we purport to) than about the fact that he plays a mobile phone. If someone reading a book while walking fell into an open pit, chances are we would feel sorry for him or her, instead of directing anger.
So, how shall we treat phubbers? Here are my two suggestions.
One, if we truly care about their security (don't fall into a pit or get run over by a car), we should say only this: "Don't read a mobile phone while walking." This is just like how we caution a bookworm: "Don't read a book while walking."
Desire for pleasure
Two, even if we actually care about the undesirable content that often comes with a mobile phone, such a device is never the culprit for one's distraction; one's desire for pleasure is. If we do not rein in our wanton heart for pleasure, we will crave something else tomorrow, when a mobile phone or tablet is out of fashion.
In ancient times, there were no phones or tablets or TV, but people suffered from a distracted way of life in their own way. One day when Buddha traveled, he saw a group of rowdy young men chasing a prostitute. Buddha asked them why they did so, and they replied that the woman had decamped with their money. Buddha then smiled and said to them: "Which is more important, having your money back, or your heart back?" Legend has it that the rowdy young men were enlightened on the spot.
"If we get our heart right, worldly things will fall in their own order," said Wang Yangming (1472-1529), a great Confucian scholar and military strategist.
Today's commentators prefer to pick the easy target for a moral attack.
In the case of a phubber, critiques choose the phone or tablet as the culprit as if doing away with these modern gadgets will save one from distraction. And in picking an easy scapegoat for one's slip from enlightenment, critiques often make the unenlightened move to beautify the past with too broad a sweep.
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