“HIGH TOUCH” – the emerging mega trend of 2020

It’s mid-year and the right time to sense into 2020 and its trends, challenges and opportunities. When studying various credible sources concerned with this one trend caught my special attention; it’s called: “high touch”. High tech was a trend some time ago and has become part of most people’s lives, e.g. smart phones, online banking, social media and countless other blessings and curses of our high tech age.

“High touch” means an in-person connection, not digital but live, the presence of life forms in the Here and Now. And for me it wouldn’t be worth mentioning if I wouldn’t consider the quality of high touch. Let’s be honest, what’s the point of being in the presence of another when the connection is poor, superficial, motive driven?

Last week I had a high touch family meeting (my wife’s parents from Moscow were visiting us for a week) and one evening we went out for dinner meeting with a local Greek friend. After ordering the meals I looked at the table and saw 5 people each one looking at their smartphone and communicating. It was just a few minutes, but illustrated perfectly what I am trying to say here.

High touch means not only sharing physical space with each other. It only deserves the name – in my view – when there is also high quality of high touch. When I use the term high touch I mean also high quality.

Presence is the foundation of such a high touch; only when we are present to each other there is a connection that shares aliveness. Everything else is a material condition (two or more bodies share physical space) without aliveness. To be present is an art in itself, it is beyond paying attention or showing interest. Eye contact is a good start, not for a split second but in a comfortable relaxed way maintaining eye contact without making it a drama.

When presence is present the next equally important factor that makes high touch high touch is: “As what are you present?” This is a puzzling question that requires understanding. One can be present as a pleaser, a daughter or son (role), a spouse, a seeker, a lonesome cowboy or any of the numerous roles one plays in different settings. It’s fine as long as one has a role and consciously chooses to play it for reasons of higher vision, but not when the role has you – which is the default state of most human beings. People being together armored by their roles doesn’t allow for high touch; at best we got touch but without the high.

No role means being present without a motive or an agenda. Just present.

The third quality parameter that defines high touch is context or vision. When you are present (and not in a role) then the question is: “As what are you present?” And the answer can always be found in the context, the vision you are – and from where you presence yourself into the Here and Now. If your context, your vision is love and empowerment, then you are present as love and empowerment. Or you are present as aliveness, passion, healing, light and so on and so forth.

Now we are talking High Touch!

From here we can look at leveling up high touch to never ending higher levels of high touch quality. It’s an invitation to spiral higher together; its ecstatic, adventurous, wonder-full.

I thoroughly believe that High Touch will become THE value commodity of the next decades, starting now. How many more hours do you want to donate of your daily being alive to being present to a piece of matter, may be your cell phone, your tablet of laptop?

The illusion produced by high tech looks like high touch but absolutely isn’t. We are present to a dead piece of matter. Life energy is present in matter on a very dense low frequency level – try to make love to a stone and you know what I mean ;-).

I see a powerful rise in the returning demand of people for high touch, personally, professionally and collectively. May online learning have its benefits, but it won’t change the fact that after two hours of online learning you have been in the presence of a stone; if you are somewhat sensitive you can feel the subtle emptiness that is present; lack of aliveness, lack of high touch. We run away from it to our addictions and distractions…but we are seriously not conscious of what’s really going on.

The demand for high touch comes from those who can feel the difference between being present to a stone and to a beating heart. And yes, high touch it is when the context is conscious and of high value.

I see an increase of conscious people coming together, maybe even living together in high touch. The old big-family structures broke, but now they may emerge again as a conscious big-family….and maybe that was the purpose of the breakdown in the first place; we as human beings needed first to experience so much distance, emptiness and the suffering that comes with it until we had enough and cry out for high touch.

Aliveness is the one thing dead matter cannot produce.

Let’s keep the cell phones and laptops, but only for tools of technological convenience – and let’s communicate, live, dance, share in HIGH TOUCH.

P.S.: it is my personal vision and heart desire to manifest a High Touch environment where we have the possibility to engage and eventually live in High Touch; I see a community of us dedicated to Conscious Living and self-realization living together in a generous space that allows for privacy and community at the same time, with ongoing daily programs, frequent special events like new & full moon celebrations, Q&A transformation sessions, meditations, Hojo, etc etc. …. and a workspace hall where we can have visitors coming and doing retreats & trainings. I desire to be available to everyone in the community as a mentor, serve the community through my gifts and build a microcosm of a Conscious Society, starting with a small community first. If this resonates with you, let me know and connect with me. This is a community project from the very beginning; I offer all I have to give but the vision can only manifest through us as a committed community. And I know it got to happen.  

With love, ❤ Marc Steinberg