How many people CAN’T pinch an inch today?

So the effects of a modern nutritional environment on the physical body are well established, but how is the mind and spirit of a human being treated by what it consumes? If the consumption of mass produced and over processed foods in large quantities damages the body, it is likely the consumption of mass produced and over processed mental “nutrition” has similar consequences on the psyche.

The first clue to the answer is the rate of prescribing mental health drugs. Medication for depression, anxiety, ADHD, and other mind issues is up dramatically. A recent study reported that 1-in-4 women is dispensed medication for a mental health condition over the past decade.

The source of this trend could originate in part from electronic overload. A college in England performed a study using MRI analysis of brain activity and discovered that Internet addiction is linked with changes in the brain similar to those seen in people addicted to alcohol, cocaine and cannabis. The phenomenon is more pronounced in children and adolescents.

Some experts are promoting the idea of “email bankruptcy:”

All of this emailing is designed to keep me from real human interaction. And so I go about my day like I’m playing a Chucky Cheese arcade game of Whack-a-Mole. Knock one email back and two others pop up. Increasingly common is the sight of two young people dining out, each muted and bent by “BlackBerry hunch.” That’s just downright sad — sadder than two old people chewing quietly with nothing to say at a Denny’s buffet.

So here is my big idea.

I’m filing for email bankruptcy. This is not a novel idea. I remember reading an article about it years ago — that was before my emails climbed to unprecedented heights. I thought the author was a whiner. He was inefficient; clearly he didn’t have a balance in his life or his priorities straight. Now I think he was brilliant — a prophet before his time. About a month ago, I left my iPhone in a restaurant. No Good Samaritan emerged from this story — it was New York City for Pete’s sake. But whatever the new owner of my phone did that night, the next morning most of my inbox was mysteriously erased. After some panicked moments and two hours on the Apple help line, I came to the realization it was gone. And all at once a light went on. “So what?” said the light. Big honking deal! And you know what? Nothing bad happened. I didn’t miss any deadlines. The people that wanted me just emailed again. They hadn’t even realized I’d been playing hooky. They’d probably forgotten whose turn it was to LOL back. – Lee Woodruff

Does it sound like an extreme idea? Not too extreme for Volkswagen or Veritas. VW has adopted a policy of turning off its Blackbery servers so that employees do not receive emails after working hours. ”The issue of employees using Blackberrys, computers and other devices out of working time is a growing one that needs to be addressed as it can be a source of stress,” Trades Union Congress (TUC) secretary general Brendan Barber.  At Veritas a “no email Fridays” policy forces employees to call by phone or walk over and visit a co-worker if they wish to converse or collaborate.

The mechanism behind how information overload decreases mental ability is described in the Scientific American article titled “Forgetting is the Key to a Healthy Mind.” In the same way that sleep is necessary to maintain physical development, purging mental input is critical to brain operation.

With food, multitasking, and possessions, less could be more:

It is easy to see that texting while driving is bad. While it might not be as apparent, other types of multitasking might have just as serious consequences in the long run. Consider the aspects of life you hold as most important and wish to perform the best. It could be building a relationship, bonding with family, or enjoying a life vent. Then consider if there are any other pursuits, distractions or activities which are creeping into being present for those important things.

As someone who understands this difficulty for these reasons and others, there are common proofs which help demonstrate the value of the present. Being aware of verifiable proof that being in the present creates the most pleasure in life helps me get back to that state, I hope it does for you as well.

1. Did you ever notice how many great ideas come to you in bed? It could be just as you drift off to sleep, or as you start to wake up, a brainstorm of a fantastic idea comes to you. As you observe your brain developing the thought it becomes even more compelling. I think this happens at that moment because  you are completely in the present, even if unintentionally. There are no distractions of everyday life operations to drag your mind into future concerns or past resentment. It is only about now.
What normally happens next is that your mind starts to take over and think of how you can use this idea in the future and you start to chase it. Often the idea goes away or is hard to recreate mentally. This could be because the stillness of the present is gone too.
Instead of bolting out of bed to write it down or try to think of all the opportunities which would come from your great idea, why not try and get above the mind and be part of the present again. Even if that means going back to sleep. Then when awake later I focus on the present and it gets back to that state. Decidedly using the mind as a tool conjures allows the thought to come back on its own.

2. Consider all of the most valuable aspects of your life, most or all of which will be experiences, relationships, events, or other non-material things. Your best friends, greatest jobs, accomplishments, your children, family, and the like. Make a list if you want to. Be sure that we are both thinking of the “best” things, not the “most” things. Now look at each item on your “list” (mental or written) and remember how that thing came to be. Didn’t most or all of them come to you, rather than being something you were chasing? The greatest relationships are usually described as “we just found each other.” Genuinely happy couples usually aren’t the result of people chasing a relationship, they came unexpectedly. Even great jobs or business arrangements happen due to the right circumstances coming together. If you are thinking of a business or employment scenario which you think happened because of you pursuing it, really think about whether it was just an opportunity that came to you.
Your children, in effect come to you. You don’t choose them. And they are often the greatest things in a persons life. This was an example given to me which at first I could not understand. A parent was told that their child was lucky to have them, to which they replied that no, the child had chosen them. What seemed mystical at the time is so completely accurate. All of the significant pleasures come from allowing the flow of life to happen, and much of the pain comes from chasing future expectations of an artificial identity, or running from resentments of the past. Even great artists speak of their work as having just come to them.
When there is an apparent conflict between whether a “thing” is a positive aspect of life or not, such as a friend, job, or even a child, it may be because you have started to “chase” something about it. What was “good”when you let it be part of the present became “bad” when you tried to force some other time upon it, past or present. For example when a child becomes something that is annoying or brings pain, it could be because instead of being present in the now of that life, there has been an invasion of future expectations, resentment from the past, or other intrusions. The parent can project those things onto the child and create anxiety for both. This can happen with any relationship.

It is a slight paradox to have to think about past events to reinforce being present, but it may be a necessary evil until being able to be in the now consistently is easier.

Mr Segal believes doing away with email has been fundamental to Klick’s growth. “Our financial growth as an organisation is proof that this works. Since 1997 we have been growing at 30 per cent profitability, and we attribute a lot of that to our system. It allows us to be more responsive and clients notice that,” he said. There are even companies specifically in business to serve as email marketing consultants.

Twenty years ago, multitasking appeared to be a valuable workflow process. It may not only be contributing to less fulfilling personal lives, but doing damage to corporate balance sheets as well.

Even 100 years ago the richest humans such as a Rockefeller lived a life which may not have been as filled with creature comforts as a lower middle class American might today. Air conditioning was non-existent, heat was spotty, electricity was unreliable, and even food availability and quality was not fully developed.

So the daily struggle to obtain food and shelter are largely facilited by the modern systems in the human developed world. What are we doing with all of the extra time previously used hunting, building shelter, tending fires, cultivating gardens, making clothing, walking to remote locations, and reparing tools? Through the 1950′s the 1st World built productive enterprise and vivid social networks, creating intelligence for the future.

Having run out of challenges, the void has been replaced with less stimulating, lower quality pursuits. In some cases dangerous. Fast food, numbing electronics, soothing entertainment, and , it is like the Ridalin of mental inputs. When the intangible goods we use are of inferior quality, they run the risk of falling apart, injuring us, and not being worth anything. In turn, the person will fall apart emotionally, become damaged, and have a lower value mentally. In the later decades of the 1900′s, “Made in China” meant lower quality, although that is not the case today. The “products” which affect the health and development of individuals today originate from many places, but they share the same low quality as the “Made In China” batch of physical goods from the 60′s and 70′s.

Cheap inferior products often break, injures the user, and serve no productive purpose. Inferior life pursuits do the same thing to the psyche.

A person cannot make the future into something specific, nor can he live on the fleeting memories of the past.  The present holds all the satisfaction you need if you let it. Do today right and tomorrow will be just fine.

See also “Proof of the Present”

Two years ago I wrote that some of the consequences from municipal budget cuts could be things such as more people getting food poisoning due to fewer restaurant inspections. It looks like that was an optimistic prediction. Raymond Zack fared much worse last week in Alameda California. It seems that he drowned in the Pacific Ocean while rescuers looked on, unable to assist due to the fact their water rescue certifications and equipment had been cancelled due to budget cuts in 2010. Sorry Ray.

Economists and financial experts are envisioning an even worse future.  ”Local revenues probably haven’t seen the worst of it,” says Christopher Hoene, director of research at the National League of Cities.  Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities, expects state and local governments to slash 20,000 to 30,000 jobs a month through the middle of 2012. Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors notes that when states cut spending to balance their budgets, as required annually, a ripple effect multiplies the damage: Companies that do business with states and localities suffer. These companies, in turn, scale back their own hiring. More than 467,000 state and local government jobs have vanished since the recession officially ended in June 2009.

Steven Leslie, financial services analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research firm, predicts that tight government spending at the local, state and federal levels will persist during a prolonged period of slow growth.

More on municipal budgets.

From the CNBC article, several economists are concerned about the future.

Peter Yastrow, market strategist for Yastrow Origer, told the network “What we’ve got right now is almost near panic going on with money managers and people who are responsible for money.”

Mark Mobius from Templeton Financial predicts that another financial crisis is just around the corner. “There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis,” Mobius said.

So now we’ll pop out of the groundhog den and look to see if winter is over. Today however Case-Schiller is reporting not only that a double dip in housing is confirmed, but that the level is at a new low. While CNBC says it is worse than “expected” , they must not have read this blog in 2009 when we projected exactly this result. Today the experts seem to be agreeing. David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices, said in a statement. “Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight.” “People just don’t want to own homes anymore,” he said.

To continue the metaphor, the groundhog is predicting more winter. Keep an eye on the municipal budget issue. Counties, cities, and states are still facing massive budget deficits and are cutting services like crazy. As law enforcement is one of the big areas cut, more episodes of social violence are observed. Dozens of stories of assaults, gang violence, brazen rapes, and attacks on police were on the front pages just in one weekend as unruly behavior is becoming commonplace.

Boston riots have been going on for 4 days, with the Massachusetts State Police unable to control them.

Oh yeah, food stamp use is up 40% over the past two years as well.