Last week I went around Taipei. One of the places I visited was the Living mall; I just liked the architecture of the building and wanted to take some pictures. To my surprise the mall was empty of shoppers although they had big sales. I remember reading when the mall was at one point trying to open for 24 hours but it seems 2 years after the opening of the Living Mall, the Xinyi District where Taipei 101 is located was developed as a shopping district and took a lot of the business and shoppers from the Living Mall. Taipei has very high population density, the trains, the malls, the restaurants, the streets everywhere you look you bump into many people. I thought about why would someone want to have a mall open 24 hours but obviously, it’s needed because of the many people who are willing to shop day and night. What happened to all the things we buy, don’t most of them end up in landfills?
The next day I was at a coffee shop having breakfast, I noticed a group of 3 persons in their twenties they ordered their food and they sat on the table; they never talked to each other. Each one of them opened his phone and started texting and browsing. Since then I started to notice every time I take the train at least half of the passengers are using their phones to text, to talk or just play some games.
I remember the day I took the gondola ride a month ago, there was a guy who didn’t even bother to enjoy the scenery all the way up, he was using his iPhone. I was wondering what these things are adding to our quality of life. I don’t have an answer for this I just not smart to have a smart phone 🙂 But it makes me wonder am I loosing anything because I don’t have one of these phones? Is it any easier to get hold of someone now that we have smart phones, emails, messenger, Facebook, Twitter. What would life and society look like 30 or 50 years from now?
I remember last year when I was sitting in a Starbucks in San Diego and someone was asking the guy who worked behind the counter if he has an email because he wanted to send him some information. The guy was in his twenties he said he doesn’t have an email or any thing related to internet. His friend responded “man, if you don’t have an email is like you don’t have a soul” 🙂
In the months that preceded the start of my journey, while I was getting rid of all the stuff I used to have, I felt I was attached to this stuff, these objects that were sitting for no use. I have to admit it was hard at the beginning to get rid of all of it. After getting rid of everything I felt a lot more relaxed not having any of these material things and was able to live without these things for many months even before the start of the journey. It didn’t change anything in my life.
