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Key points
- Transformational experiences have the power to transform us without us having time to realize it.
- Technology is changing the way in which we are present to each other.
- We need to exercise our choices concerning our use of technology before it changes us into being incapable of authentic intimate connections.
Do you want to become a vampire? This provocative question was raised by philosopher L. A. Paul in her book, Transformative Experience (2014). Although the question seems unworldly, it applies to many experiences in our lives.
This same question can be asked to all those thinking of making a significant step forward in their lives: having a child, taking a new job, or even buying a house.
This question asks: are you willing to take on an experience that will transform you so much that you will not recognize who you were once you are halfway through this path?
More or less in life, our instincts start tingling when a transformational experience is approaching. We feel that the choice is going to shape us for better or for worse.
There are, though, transformational experiences that do not ask for our permission and do not leave us many choices—if a loved one falls ill, or we lose our job.
A less traumatic but transformational experience we go through without permission involves technology. Sometimes we become vampires without thinking twice, and it changes our lives in a way that we do not always like and from which it is not possible to come back.
The Transformational Experience
A husband calls me because he wants to recover from sex life with his wife. He used to have good sex with her, but she no longer seemed to be interested in him in that way. He does not want to cheat on her—he says—but he is having trouble coping with the urge and the sense of rejection.
We started working together. Each of them gave different meanings to sex. He was involved in a very stressful job, and for him, sex was a way to release the tension. For her, sex was more about intimacy.
We realized that they both chose to undergo a transformational experience with their body without making a real choice. They were both vampirized.
When he described to me, in detail, his daily routine, it became evident how he had no respite from technology at any time of day or night. He explained to me that he had to be everywhere at any given time. His phone had to always be on—night and day—his employees had to be able to reach him from all over the world at any time.
His body became ubiquitous, and it transcended the limits of his corporeality. His wife adjusted to that and developed a similar relationship with technology. Yet, this ubiquitous body generated no small problems with their intimacy.
The word intimacy comes from Latin, intus, inside. Their bodies were no longer inside since their spatial and timely borders extended in every direction.
Does This Transformational Experience Concern Us?
Whether we pay attention to it or not, the use we make of technology is changing the structure of our body profoundly. The way we connect with our bodies and with the bodies of other people tends to be much less carnal than it used to be.
It is a normal, daily practice to exist through our smartphones and entertain meaningful relationships through it.
As L. A. Paul remarks, at the end of any transformational experience, we are more prone to acknowledge its goodness because refusing it would mean we question our identity. Hence, we might be, on average, happy about this new form of ubiquitous existence—we can see the face of our loved ones even if we live far apart, take interesting seminars on the other side of the world, kiss our children good night even if we are still at work.
Yet, we should keep in mind that our bodies are changing, and with them come new meanings about how we experience intimacy, presence, and care—all of which are changing too. My client had no interest in making different use of technology. He had to maintain the status quo in his life, but he was utterly blind about how different his body was and the new meaning his body had.
What Can We Do?
A nagging sense of void can take over when transformations occur without us catching up with them. To avoid this inability to give words to these invisible transformations that lead us to grow apart from ourselves and our loved ones, we might guard our ability to be present with ourselves and assign meanings to what we do.
Questioning our daily routine, taking some time to detox, and recovering our connection with our body could be ways to recover our presence within the space that our body covers. Even if we do not realize it, having to extend our presence beyond the limits of our flesh might be exhausting, so we might want to create a routine that helps us to be a little less vampire-like and a little more human.
