My Meditation Experience

By Anonymous

Mediated environment

            I began by sitting in the computer lab in the Johnson center. I sit down and boot up the computer. I can hear a roaring chatter coming from all the way from the crowd of people on the first floor. I enter my passcode to logon the computer. As usual, I immediately turn the sound down because it is always on maximum volume. I firstly open google chrome, like always, see the George Mason Homepage. I go to the blackboard website out of habit to check my grades and see if any homework is due. I go class by class, English, Environmental science, Art History. Firstly, I click on the sustainable world class, I see there is a reading and assignment due.  The contents of the assignment consist of reading a textbook chapter and writing a summarization blogpost. Next, I spend about 45 minutes doing the said assignment. The main points I gathered from this work was that population is best controlled by education. Using forced methods such as sterilization counteractively lead to an increase in population.  

Natural Setting

            I open my backdoor to go out on the porch to sit and relax. Firstly, I immediately go to my own thoughts that I am living in a medium sized townhouse neighborhood and am grateful there is this plot of land(backyard), which is peaceful from nature. There is a tall privacy fence surrounding me. Then my mind focuses on reality. The time is 2pm so it is usually peaceful and it was. Acoustically, I hear the slight breeze in the air and I am reminded how cold it is. I look around and see clumps of snow in the corners of the fence where it had recently snowed. Some minutes pass by and I hear a revving car on the nearby highway. I look around to see if I can see any animals, there is a tall tree where often birds are, but I don’t see anything. For the rest of the time, I daydream but occasionally looks around to see anything, I sometimes see a bird, but the sound of slight wind does not change.

Summary

            This experience has made me appreciate how far technology is advanced. I found myself very bored sitting in nature and trying to see/hear animals. Outside, I was left to daydream with no electronics. However, I was much more productive at the computer doing my assignments. But, I do know the importance of balancing technology and nature.