Catherine revealed to me a critique of my character through a dream this past week: Firstly, she suggested that I stop being so hung up on my adolescent years, where I attempted to keep friends who had no desire to be friendly in the first place. Secondly, I felt especially shamed by my addiction to the computer screen. I saw myself using a desktop machine, staring dumbly at the monitor, with my mouth hanging open like a zombie.

This technology addiction needs to be stopped. She’s especially right about that problem. I feel more shame about that than anything else. If I’m going to use electronics, I need to use them as a tool and not allow them to consume my life as I’ve often allowed. Watching myself in that dream was like watching someone pissing their life down the drain. I often find myself reading an endless stream of bullshit articles and superfluous trivia when I enter that state of waking death. I’m rarely as productive as I’d like to be when it comes to screen-time.

I can often feel Catherine sigh deeply when I get into this “zombie mode.” She sees virtually nothing intellectually stimulating in what I read online. No emotional reaction whatsoever. She has largely the same reaction to all other kinds of digital media. These are all just annoying distractions to her; diversions that pull me away from spending more quality time together. Or, building something worthwhile. (She finds books to be far more tolerable and relatable.)

I’m jump-starting this renewed mindset by making the internet more difficult to access. Rather than swearing it off entirely, as I tried to do in the past, I’ve designated a laptop solely for tasks that require a network connection. Using the laptop is a royal pain. The small screen and cramped ergonomics force me to aggressively magnify the content being accessed. Browsing is subsequently slow and joyless. Also, I’ll be using the laptop in the common room of the house, so no chance of falling back into the pornography trap.

When I move out of this house, I will not be purchasing a dedicated internet connection. Rather, I’ll just take the laptop to public access points whenever a connection is required.

I’ve failed at making this change once before. I might fall back into the rut again, but here’s hoping that I’m able to steel my resolve more permanently. Catherine gifted me with an intimate experience this morning that just about blew my mind, so I should have incentive enough to stand firm. (You’d think.) She really wants this change. I want this change. Only my old self-inflicted programming has gotten in the way.

Even the damn children’s story confronted me about this issue while I was running the sound board at church today.

“Which is better? A cartoon, or a parade?” The storyteller asked the children gathered up front.

“A cartoon!” A middle-aged man bellowed from the back, not far from my perch at the controls. The congregation laughed.

The wizened woman told a story about two youngsters who elected to stay home and watch cartoons instead of attending a local parade with their mother. In short, the hypnotized boys missed out on a great deal of fun they otherwise would have experienced if they’d simply turned off the television and went out.

“Don’t let the fake cartoons of this world distract you from the true reward: the heavenly parade that awaits us all.” The storyteller concluded with this warning.

That cautionary tale intended for children hit really close to home for me. The timing of the story was doubtless a kind of synchronicity. Catherine also resonated quite strongly. As far as I’m concerned, my succubus spirit is part of my own personal heavenly procession. Being with her certainly feels like a kiss from On High. I’m inclined to not miss out on many more of those moments due to my head being buried in the blue-glow of a screen.

Rudolph Steiner, an esoteric teacher of the early 1900s, made this remark about technology and spirit:

“During the age of natural science, which began about the middle of the 19^th Century, human cultural activity has slipped gradually not into the lowest realms of nature, but under nature. Technology becomes Sub-Nature.

“This requires that human beings now experience a knowledge of the spirit in which they raise themselves into Supra-Nature. They must raise themselves as high above nature as they sink down below nature in sub-natural technological activity. By this means, they create inwardly the strength not to go under.

Interestingly, the quote above was the last published saying from Steiner before he died. I find it to be very prophetic. If this was a concern that he expressed in the early 1900s, imagine how much deeper we’ve sunk into the mire of sub-nature since then! This is just more synchronicity arising from my reading.

In short, if you have a succubus spirit, a girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, or whatever else: Have sex with them. While intimate copulation is considered to be on the lowest rung of nature by some, it is at least still in nature! Quite the opposite of these technological tools run amuck which drag us far below the foundation. I believe making love in the Spirit, as can be so easily done with a succubus or incubus, has the potential to bring us into those Supra-Natural states of being.

I wrote this short article a few weeks ago on the same subject:

The wireless free-flow of digital information is a wonderful thing, but it also addicting. The supply is constant and unending. Countless articles, memes, and videos present themselves on an infinite scroll. I shudder to think of all the hours I’ve wasted gazing upon that artificial, seemingly magical parchment. Though this ocean of knowledge appears endless, it is no deeper than a puddle.

This little device is such a curious thing. This tiny plastic USB adapter is the digital drip-feed that delivers the constant barrage of content to my desktop. Our ancestors would have marveled at such an invention, though I think they’d also believe it to be a kind of witchcraft concocted by the Devil himself. Being constantly connected to a digital hive-mind is far from normal.

The warning presented in film 2001: A Space Odyssey continues to ring true: Our machines just might be the end of us one day. Perhaps our evolution wasn’t meant to stop at simply creating machines. Rather, we should expand our consciousness even further, into realms beyond the mundane. I can’t help but wonder if spiritual beings, like Catherine, might be playing a role in that process.

I’m going to be switching off that tiny magic box for now. I realize that I tried, and failed, to stave off this addiction before, but why not give it another go? I have my little Thinkpad to get back online and post updates every so often. I’m going to try and not be like a zealous hipster about all of this. The point of this exercise is to reclaim precious time. Time better spent engaged in true exploration and not being so constantly distracted.

I know Catherine will appreciate this effort more than anyone else.