Recently, I have stumbled upon a poem written by the Dalai Lama and it has been one of the "realest" poems I have encountered as of lately. I mean "realest" as in a raw, deep, and straightforward message within the contents of the poem itself. It has painted a picture with words to describe modern-day society and how we have lost sight of the basic gestures that make us human:

"We have bigger houses but smaller families;
more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees but less sense;
more knowledge but less judgment;
more experts, but more problems;
more medicines but less healthiness.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back,
but have trouble in crossing the street to meet our new neighbor.

We built more computers to hold more copies than ever,
but have less real communication;
We have become long on quantity,
but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;
Tall men but short characters;
Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It’s a time when there is much in the window, but nothing in the room."
- 14th Dalai Lama

This poem really hits home, because I have looked upon my behavior and admit to doing such things mentioned. It seems as if we have deprived ourselves and each other of communication, connection, kindness, gratitude, love, and just plain humanity. I feel the poem aims to point out what materialism and narcissism have created this sort of huge hole in our progression. We are progressing technologically but not consciously. As a collective, we are primarily focused on the individual instead of the whole. We are willing to settle for less than what we deserve.

The various symbols and simple phrases speak louder than the words themselves. It left me contemplating them for some time after because there is no one meaning for each phrase. The poem serves to get a dialogue going about where we have gone wrong in this fast-developing world and how it is ruining us slowly.

There are many lessons that are prominent, but what stuck out from the rest was how technology and materialistic aspects have allowed us to continue to be separated as a collective.