"Look Up" Spoken Word

I found this skit a while back, I dont know where, but I love it.

I have four-hundred-and-twenty-two friends, yet I am lonely. I speak to all of them everyday, yet none of them really know me.  The problem I have sits in the spaces between looking into their eyes or at a name on a screen. I took a step back and opened my eyes, I looked around to realize the media we call social is anything but.

Were at ‘almost happy’ with an experience we share, but is it the same if no one is there? Be there for your friends and they’ll be there too, but no one will be if a group message will do.  We edit and exaggerate, crave adoration. We pretend not to notice the social separation. We put our words into order and turn our lives a-glistening. We don’t even know if anyone is listening!

I can’t stand to hear the silence of a busy commuter train when no one want’s to talk for the fear of looking insane. We’re becoming unsocial, it no longer satisfies to engage with one another, and look into someone’s eyes. We’re surrounded by children, who since they were born, have watched us living like robots, who now think it’s the norm.  It’s not very likely you’ll make world’s greatest dad, if you can’t entertain a child without using an iPad. When I was a child, I’d never be home. Be out with my friends on our bikes we’d roam. I’d wear holes on my trainers, and graze up my knees. We’d build our own clubhouse, high up in the trees. Now the parks so quiet, it gives me a chill. See no children outside and the swings hanging still. There’s no skipping, no hopscotch, no church and no steeple. We’re a generation of idiots, smart phones and dumb people.

The time you don’t have to tell hundreds of what you’ve just done. Because you want to share this moment with just this one. The time you sell your computer, so you can buy a ring, for the girl of your dreams, who is now the real thing.  The time you want to start a family, and the moment when, you first hold your little girl, and get to love again. The time she keeps you up at night, and all you want is rest. And the time you wipe away the tears as your baby flees the nest. 

But none of these times ever happened, you never had any of this. When you’re too busy looking down, you don’t see the chances you miss.  So look up from your phone, shut down those displays, we have a final act existence a set number of days. Don’t waste your life getting caught in the net, because when the end comes there’s nothing worse than regret. I’m guilty too of being part of this machine, this digital world, we are hear but not seen. 

Look up from your phone. Shut down that display. Live life the real way. 

Dont let the noise of the world keep you from hearing the voice of the Lord.

Call to me and i will answer you and i will tell you great and mighty things which you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3