All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Chapter 4
Yes, I am woefully behind on posting through this book. I even read the chapter several days in advance of the target post-date of last Wednesday. However, chapter 4 had a ton of material for mulling over, and so after starting and stopping and starting and stopping, deciding to quit trying to fit my thoughts to words, and changing my mind again, I have decided that there was application too important to let flit away. Writing solidifies things in one’s own mind. I can’t let this chapter pass by. However, my previous posts on this chapter have taken me hours to write. I just can’t do that, much as it is good for my brain. It’s not so good for the house or children.
Chapter 4: Popular Culture and the Restless Ones
Montaigne, 16th century:
Variety always solaces, dissolves, and scatters. … By changing place, occupation, company, I escape into the crowd of other thoughts and diversions, where [the horror of cosmic isolation] loses my trace, and leaves me safe.
There is nothing new under the sun. Texting, iPods, television, internet, these are all simply new ways to satisfy the age-old impulse to escape contemplation, which is a horror if you don’t have God. Yet, I do think they are tools that have value; one must only be aware of their specific temptations and guard against it. And, if Montaigne in the 16th century could seek diversion from contemplation, then obviously simply getting rid of technology is not going solve the problem. It’s a heart problem, not a technology problem.
Pascal, 17th century, on mankind in general:
Thus they are given cares and business which make them bustle about from the break of day. — It is, you will exclaim, a strange way to make them happy! What more could be done to make them miserable? — Indeed! what could be done? We should only have to relieve them from all these cares; for then they would see themselves: they would reflect on what they are, whence they came, whither they go, and thus we cannot employ and divert them too much.
One should be able to be at peace in one’s own mind, be able to reflect, and be able to contemplate one’s life without distraction. One should have that power of concentration, and one should have the peace and confidence in Christ to do so. If the noise and bustle of activity is a mask for doubt and fear, take heed!
And this is why after having given them to so much business, we advise them, if they have some time for relaxation, to employ it in amusement, in play, and to be always fully occupied. … all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. … They have a secret instinct which impels them to seek amusement and occupation abroad, and which arises from the sense of their constant unhappiness.
Obviously, “quietly in their own chamber” does not mean a bedroom equipped with cell phone, computer, and television, but time spent in real solitude. :)
My personal application of this concept, which I encountered a year or more ago and have thought about off and on ever since (thank you, Cindy!), is that I am determined not to crowd my children’s schedules. My parents gave us a pretty quiet and laid-back childhood, partly due to the logistics of a large family, but I’ve never regretted it or thought I “missed out” on anything — even at the time. I think kids should have time to muck around and plenty of time for all sorts of reading and drawing. So, even though there may be a myriad of good things they could potentially do, I want to very carefully select what we will do, because plenty of free time at home is very important, and a very easy thing to lose without realizing it until you’re stressed out.
Moreover, I need to apply this to my own life. I do find it is true that when I feel the need for some space and quiet time, I often turn to the computer or a podcast or a book. And, depending on the book, I come away still feeling frazzled. But what has made a difference in my frazzle-level (frazzility, perhaps?) is getting up before the children and having some truly peaceful time before the day gets going, and, yes, actually spending even 10-15 minutes reading my Bible and praying really does — when I do it regularly and not haphazardly — bring tranquility to my mind and emotions. I have never, ever been good about daily devotions. Yet those short-lived times when I have stuck to it have yielded fruit, so I am at the point where I simply have to overcome the bad habit of resisting, knowing first-hand that it is Good.
On Hurry and Impatience
Television is often accused of reducing the attention span of viewers. But television can’t take the blame for the fact that modern people are impatient people. Much of our technology exists to mollify our impatience.
A question came up a few weeks ago at our Bible Study about whether or not being impatient at and angry with inanimate objects is really a problem. My instinct is that it is, although the group seemed divided. Myers addresses this same question indirectly. Impatience is a problem in the heart, no matter who or what the manifestations are directed at. Myers goes through a whole day, showing all the aspects in our society that feed our impatience, from drive-throughs to credit cards.
One way to combat that tendency is to purposefully choose pursuits that do not provide instant gratification. Gardening, handwork, baking bread, building or making something yourself instead of buying it, having at least one hobby that takes time and effort before a result is achieved is beneficial to the soul.
On Taste
Unless you had a taste for something better, you would never get tired of eating fast food or frozen dinners all of the time. If you were dissatisfied with such a diet, you wouldn’t be able to define your dissatisfaction unless you had something else to compare it with.
Right now and for the next several years, I am in the business of forming tastes. Food, music, words, art, activities. Myer’s instant coffee metaphor in a previous chapter also addressed this and is an apt metaphor for all manner of cultivated tastes. Instant coffee can be utilitarian, but acquiring a taste for it also impairs a taste for “real coffee.” The more “real” your coffee gets (Italians probably have the most “real”), the more one’s taste must be acclimated to it and the less one will accept the instant version. It’s just the way the world works. I want my children to have a taste for the real — be it music, or books, or food, or doctrine, or people. I’ll be happy with plain, real, brewed coffee, because at that point one can appreciate the next step up and notice that the next step down is a step down. I’m also not going to worry about not letting them ever sip instant. If they are surrounded mostly by drip and some espresso, then some instant here and there is only going to broaden their understanding and won’t hinder them. It’s when instant is the constant diet that a shot of espresso tastes like poison. I like the metaphor. I’ll stay in it so I can keep this totally generalized and not specifically applied. :)
Cop out!
Who is Slain When Time is Killed?
Diversion, however frantic, can overwhelm temporarily but not ultimately relieve the boredom which oozes from nonfulfillment. [Van den Haag qtd. on pg. 62] Modernity has not excluded God from the universe. It has simply made it more difficult to maintain a consciousness of God’s presence in a culture that increasingly ignores Him. [Myers pg. 62] The bored person is lonely for himself, not, as he thinks, for others. He misses the individuality, the capacity for experience from which he is debarred. No distraction can restore it. Hence he goes unrelieved and insatiable. [Van den Haag qtd on pg. 64] Van den Haag’s terminally bored consumer of popular culture is deprived of individuality because he has been cut off from the the sources of understanding himself. Traditionally, the values and religious commitments of family and community provided the context for a person to experience his own individuality. Cut off from [this]…there is a new urgent necessity to “find” oneself. [Myers pg. 64] One may turn to mass media when lonely or bored. But mass media, once they become a habit, impair the capacity for meaningful experience. Though more diffuse and not as gripping, the habit feeds on itself, establishing a vicious circle as addictions do. [Van den Haag qtd on pg. 72] It would seem that the differentiating factor is whether or not participating in a particular aspect of popular culture is habitual or deliberate behavior. The more habitual it is, the less likely it is to promote shared experience. [Myers pg. 72]
So, am I distracted? Do I check my email out of habit or deliberately with a purpose? Considering I sat down to write this post at least 5 or 6 times and then didn’t actually do it because I got lost in this scene and in my mind, I would have to admit to being pretty distracted. Considering I will flick the mouse if the screen saver is running just to see if my little mail icon is red, even though I am in the middle of some other activity and don’t have time to read or respond, I would have to admit to being pretty entrenched in habit.
The technology isn’t out to get us, it is a problem in our hearts and heads that has always been there.
Matt and I are talking about getting iPhones in a couple years after reaching some financial goals, and I do fear a greater dependency and habit. However, I think the problem is not with owning or using the tools (be it a television, computer, cell phone, iPod, or anything), but in being aware of the temptations the device inherently carries and what temptations you yourself are prone toward. Matt, for instance, is not prone toward addictive habits, but I am. The question is often not, as Myers has already said multiple times, whether the thing is lawful, but how I can use it with wisdom.
To do that I need to be aware of my own predispositions and temptations, to know my goals and aspirations, to recognize the current season of my life, and to keep Christ foremost above all. With that, I will wrap this up, because this still took me an hour and a half to compose before any proofing. And I have dishes waiting for me. So, shall I put into practice my musings or be content to merely muse?
