We Are Not Brains In Jars

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Janet Fitch’s chapter in Writers Workshop in a Book titled Coming to Your Senses resonates with me. She states, “More and more of us are becoming that boy, typing and tapping, viewing the world through screen and windshields, and never noticing what we might be missing.” We are increasingly an indoor society – a virtual society. We see, hear, feel, and experience what others have created for us on TV, in magazines, in games, in books. She uses an example of a Star Trek episode where brains in jars run a world. I remember that episode. I can see her point.

I work at a large university. We post signs to help students find where they need to go for services or information. They don’t read them. They say they don’t notice the large signs with red lettering. I have a theory on this. They have “pop up blindness” from too many years on the Internet. They live in a world of DVRs where they can skip commercials. They don’t take the time to read or pay attention to what’s in front of them. They text people sitting next to them. They talk on the phone or text people when they are physically with other people. They are blind to the non-virtual world.

Fitch keeps sensory notebooks. I believe in this. I’m fortunate that there is an arboretum at the university where I work. At least once a week, I walk to the arboretum and just experience things. I write them in little notebooks and I take pictures and videos. I need to do this because sitting in my office all day makes me numb. It’s like when I had hand surgery a few years ago and they didn’t put me under, they used a tourniquet. They squeezed off sensation. They isolated my arm from my brain. I didn’t feel them cutting into me. I felt a far away sensation of muted touch, but no pain. Technology is a tourniquet. It isolates our brains from life. As Fitch states, it’s too easy to become a brain in a jar.

I put inspirational quotes on the wall behind my writing desk. I added one today: “We are not brains in jars.” The picture pasted above it is a little gory, but hopefully it will help me remember to get up and go outside once in a while. Hopefully, that will give me real sensory information to share through my writing so I won't be writing as a brain in a jar.
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