FOCUS
I’ve been increasingly frustrated with an inability to focus lately. Part of me worries it's age, given my advance into the latter half of a fifth decade. Whether writing this newsletter or reading a few pages of a book, it seems there’s immediately something else demanding space in my mind, and I usually cave to the distraction. Interestingly, that something almost always involves my phone or laptop.
I recently mused with a friend over this phenomenon, our inability to dig deeply into one thing at a time, suggesting it called for radical action. The next day I decided to leave my phone and laptop in a drawer from the time I got up until late that day. You know.. recreating a few hours of that radical landscape we lived in for millennia, until the past decade or two.
I also set out to write down my thoughts during this experiment, on paper with a pen. Incredible aside; these still work like they did in the ‘90s (and 1890s).
That morning, I woke early with an almost giddy sense of relief. There was no “need” to check my various messaging platforms: signal, telegram, texts, email, twitter. It was just going to be coffee, my Bible, notebook and pen.
It was freeing. It was also nuts. No one is telling me I must check all those platforms and I almost never get sent something requiring immediate attention.
Not long after, the phrase ‘little gods in our pockets’ jumped to mind in an epiphany of sorts. Incredibly, these inanimate devices are demanding action from us. More incredibly, we’re complying.
As James Corbett said in his fascinating documentary on media, “The smart phone has become the digital god of the zombie hordes, demanding we bow down in prayer at every free moment.”
About an hour later, I felt some concern when I couldn’t send a rather mundane text RIGHT NOW. What is this need for perennial access and immediacy in everything, from sending messages, to shopping to resolving an argument over the drive time to Punkydoodles Corners? And oh, the hardship if the wireless isn’t fast enough!
We typically plan ahead, carving out blocks of time for visits with those we love, for fitness, for self-care. We don’t permit our kids unlimited, unfettered access to screens. But we've largely disposed of the idea that we, personally, need limits and can schedule short periods of time in a day for messages, news and uncovering Wikipedia factoids. Instead, most of us do it all day long.
How, as sentient beings did we arrive at a place where control over our lives and minds can feel tenuous? I propose it’s unchecked patterns that morph into habits, that eventually become compulsions. We wake up one day, wondering why we feel untethered.
As my good friend eloquently stated here, after our conversation sparking my tech-less experiment, “Nothing can accumulate in such an environment; nothing can settle; nothing can mature. [Our] minds start to resemble Cirque du Soleil in a typhoon — with bears, clowns, and popcorn just blowing around everywhere in a jumbled mess.”
I’m no neurosurgeon, but it seems we’ve rewired our brains. Will reprogramming take a long time, and enormous effort? I’m not sure, but the stakes suggest that, either way, the task requires intervention right now, rather than ‘someday’.
PRACTICAL EXERCISE
First, find a challenging, boring task you’ve been putting off and commit to starting and finishing it, in one sitting. Then, jot down all the thoughts, distractions or comparatively easier jobs that suddenly come to mind. If that doesn’t happen; bravo, you’re the modern unicorn!
Next, leave your phone at home and go on a 30-minute walk, alone with your thoughts - no podcast, no music, nothing (scary, I know). If you’re reading this from the frozen tundra of northern Alberta, just settle in a chair with those tech gadgets safely locked away.
Remark on what happens with your mind in both those scenarios. Feel free to drop us a note and share!
What am I doing moving forward? I’ve taken social media off my phone (which helps explain the reduction in Free to Fly posts). I’m scheduling time for emails and messages, rather than checking them obsessively. It’s a start, and for more ideas I really like this piece on digital detox, from Seth Troutt.
I’m not proposing an ascetic path that ends with a horse-drawn carriage in my driveway (as appealing as that may be), but we need to think about all this, practically and aggressively. I’m too embarrassed to admit how long it’s taken me to write this newsletter, because of everything discussed here - wildly ironic, I know.
BEING PRESENT
Are we ever fully present anymore? Are we capable of listening to loved ones without a second track running in our minds, scheming the next move in our digital life? Can we work on writing an email to a friend, reading a book, or doing our taxes, without stopping after 90 seconds to check what that kitchen knife costs on Amazon?
We’re accountable for how we spend our time, and a life well-lived is the culmination of thousands of disciplined, daily choices. Those choices inevitably require a single-mindedness which we seem at risk of losing to the gods of the age, both literal (the enemy of our souls) and proverbial (technology).
Proverbs 4:25-27 says “Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.”
As we seek to live in truth amidst a world full of lies, let us single-mindedly fix our eyes on the eternal, on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. He is the only true hope, and the reason we celebrate this season!
Greg
Comments