The phrase ‘catching the tail of a tiger’ refers ‘to find oneself in a situation that has turned out to be much more difficult to control than one had expected.’ And that’s the situation we find ourselves in with technology in all of its aspects. The dilemma we face was presciently identified by the teacher Krishnamurti in 1986:
The computer is doing everything that thought can do. It can be told how to meditate, and will tell you how to meditate – it becomes your guru! Please don’t laugh, this is much too serious. I don’t think you realise what is happening. It will give you a new mantra. It will take over all the activity of thought, and where is man then? If the computer and robot take the place of man, what is man then? Either he pursues pleasure, entertainment, football, television, sex, or all the circus that goes on in the name of religion, which is another form of entertainment, or he turns inward. You have that choice in front of you. It is coming; this is your challenge. If you pursue entertainment, invented by thought through computers, your life then becomes totally empty. Or you turn to the psychological, inward search.
Krishnamurti, 1986, Talk 3
The computer and all its permutations offers tremendous advantages and opportunities, while simultaneously providing an almost ‘Matrix’ like environment for everyone (a reference to the Matrix movie franchise). Through straightforward capitalistic enterprise, the goal is to engage the technology user perpetually through any number of psychological and neurological techniques. More clicks on anything, more usage, results in more revenue. But as the collusion of government with technology has revealed, it’s also a pervasive way to control and influence values and opinions of populations.
All of this leads to the situation Krishnamurti envisioned, where consciousness itself becomes captured through an all encompassing and distracting environment. AND, all of this can happen to you without your awareness. But at other times, you realize you’ve gotten ahold of the tail of a technological tiger!