Take a look around you right now. Look inside the panel of your desktop. Right now I have an internet window immediately behind my word doc and on that internet site there are throngs of things which I wont detail, behind that I have an article up to be read, to my right I have a remote control (TV is not on, but it is in front of me), and within a very close reach is my iPhone which has a bizzillion of other things on it. What about you? What’s around you right now?
Chances are you are within a stone’s throw of two mind cluttering, thin harboring, and life maddening things that I will call hooks. Those two things, two hooks are technology &, noise. In each of these we see where I think we bite the hooks that are baited for us and get reeled into the boat of thinness and distraction.
Today we will look at technology. I love technology. I’m for it, do not expect to find any rhetoric here that will tell you to move to Pennsylvania Dutch country and lock arms with the Amish (wait for it…here it comes)…but technology is not always good for us.
I will use my iPhone as an example. I bought it so I wouldn’t have to tote an iPod & a phone, while also being able to get emails on the fly, all the while thinking: “This way I don’t have to work as much at home.” ALL TRUE! But in thinking about a distracted mind, here is the problem with all of that – it does all of that!!
On just that one dollar bill sized block of plastic and glass I have within a single touch, the world wide web, email, music, texting, news, and angry birds (which I don’t have), and these are just to name a few applications, there are millions that I can just tap and BOOM, up they come for my distracted enjoyment.
Technology is like a baited hook. It bills itself as a nice big, juicy worm that you can eat and enjoy, but it doesn’t tell you that if your not careful you can bite into a hook as well. What do I mean by that?
Well, having all those devices IS convenient, but it’s also convenient. Follow me? We always recognize the good parts of technology, and rightfully so – they are great. I love my iPhone and I don’t plan on giving it up. But we rarely take the time to consider the negative contributions of technology.
While you can call Mom, answer an email, and text someone within seconds, you have to consider while that can be good, that could also be bad. In that you are playing into a hurried, thin, cluttered mind that’s attempting to communicate with someone using words and ideas in fractions of seconds. Again, not always bad, but a lifestyle of this will starve you from the depths of delight because you are constantly operating on the surface of things, instead of seizing pockets of silence, stillness, consideration, reflection, etc.
In short, technology is just like sin. It wants to take you as far as you will let it. And if you let it, technology will have you skipping rocks on water instead of probing the depths of the sea.
I’ll provide some ways I think are good ways to use technology day after tomorrow, so stay tuned. Tomorrow’s task is showing how noise plays into our distraction.