Feng (wind) shui (water). Most who are familiar with it immediately conjure balance, peace and positive energy flow. I am drawn to the simplicity of it and the role minimalism plays in creating the most balanced and effective spatial flow.
When I think of feng shui, however, I typically think of it in terms of my home or work space. More recently (the last two days) I’ve realized that feng shui’s rules of spatial arrangement could also apply to my cyber life.
My computer files need some work, my external hard drives are a mess, my browser bookmarks are a mess. Every aspect of my cyber interactions need work—email, website backend files, electronic writings. Nothing is in feng shui order. Yes, I have items in folders, tucked away so they do not clutter my desktop, but they are not organized under any particular system and still clutter my computer in general. How quickly do we find ourselves running out of hard drive space?
In more cases than I care to admit, I have things saved that I have not touched in over a decade and may never touch. My writings of course are partially exempt from this, still, there are some writings that should be placed in a cyber fire and never resurrected.
The principles used to create a feng shui’ed home are the same principles I am attempting to use to organize my cyber world. Simple, minimalist, organized, positive flow. Everything in my cyber world should be easy to find.
I’ve observed that some who are not hoarders in their tangible life still fall victim to the hypnotic pull of being a cyber-hoarder. Why? Because it’s easy. The folders are tucked away in a corner of their computer they never really need to revisit. But as many of us know when it comes to feng shui, any clutter anywhere causes mind clutter and imbalance, whether in your home, at your workplace or in your cyber world.
The basic principles of feng shui help me to navigate the landscape of ones and zeros, and ultimately lead me to an efficient way of creating the positive energy exchange required to simplify my cyber world.
- Everything is alive
- Everything is connected
- Everything is always changing
The first principle seems to be irrelevant when it comes to our cyber life. But our cyber world has become for most of us a living and breathing entity. It is now a part of the survival of many institutions on Earth and the bread and butter for those who work remotely. This living entity is what clarifies the second principle. The cyber world connects us in a way many could never have imagined. Yes, we are all connected spiritually and through Mother Earth; but everything we create in this world becomes a part of our complex social and physical existence, adding to the connections we form.
We are now connected through an energetic force that we’ve learned to manipulate; we are now living wirelessly, utilizing the discoveries of Nikola Tesla to connect us worldwide and exchange ideas and creations that would have taken months of travel across seas, years of language translations and cultural education to even begin to touch the surface of the many ways in which people now live and interact on the planet.
The final principle requires letting go of everything—things, people, ideas, opinions and ego. I have learned that necessary change cannot occur if I am trapped in old ideologies and behaviors. I must delete the files that I’m attached to but have not given any attention in over 10 years. They no longer serve me and only clutter my hard drive space and my mind space. Even more so my spiritual space.
I don’t know if others have taken this approach to feng shui. But I believe that if we look at our cyber world more closely, we might find that it could be a major source of blockage. Wind and water must flow, or everything dies.
Wind and water play a major role in making the elements we now use to interact in our relatively new cyber world. Therefore the principles of feng shui in the cyber world apply whether we accept them or not. We intensely interact with our ever growing cyber world, directly or indirectly. It all affects us.
Let’s patch our chi by adding feng shui principles to our cyber world.
© zaji, 2016
I definitely need to get the files on my laptop in order and delete used documents before my laptop burps it all the Cyberspace!
Interesting analogy. Cyber clutter is everywhere. I like to consider it even in web design. Whenever I go to a website and videos start playing, interstitial ads start popping up, and banner ads interrupt the flow of what you are reading–it makes for a frustrating experience.
I’ve turned off automatic video play on all my social media and now use ad blockers on most sites. It is simply too much with all the ads and pop-ups. Drives me nuts.
Nice analogy and very well explained. 🙂