Restlessness
“Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul.“1
Attentiveness is not alertness, which is a restless scanning. Attentiveness requires time, intention, and focus. It is a meditative thoughtfulness about something. It is in this meditative thoughtfulness that we encounter, and discover, our soul; the core of our being.
Attentiveness is in short supply. We live in a restless time, poised to check and respond to the many digital alerts, messages, and prompts that ping, ting, and ding on our phones, watches, Fitbits, computer screens, televisions, and dashboards. Our waking hours are saturated with the presence of a virtual world, beckoning us to something more urgent, more important, more vital than our being in the present moment. Some even place their phone on their bedstand, just in case…
Sin and Shopping
If attentiveness is a form of prayer, then what is sin? St. Paul describes the experience of sin: “For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”2 Why do we feel compelled to violate our highest ideals? Religious spiritual traditions answer: The Devil. And how does the Devil manage this? By appealing to the desires of the flesh, which are sins against the commitment and command to live a life of the spirit. Sin offers the alure of euphoric oblivion, of being transported beyond the drab humdrum of daily concerns. No wonder sin is so appealing.
Secular humanist traditions do not share the metaphysical beliefs of most religions, but much wisdom resides in religious concepts that can be meaningfully translated into a humanist framework.3 St. Paul’s description of sin provides a succinct description of the experience of addiction: We feel compelled to do what we know we shouldn’t. The devil, like the religious Devil, tempts us by appealing to desires, needs, and interests that are against our best interests. This can take many forms for different people. One source, however, invades the life of nearly us all: cyberspace.
Cyberspace is not inherently devilish. The digital world is seamlessly woven into almost every aspect of our lives and has been magnified during the pandemic. Workplaces for many have shifted from office to home. In-person contact with friends and colleagues, attending church services and schooling, business meetings, social gatherings, meet-ups, babysitting, with people near and far, are now conducted through Zoom and FaceTime. Limitless entertainment, recreational, and educational activities are available in podcasts, e-books, videos, streaming, gaming, news reports, weather updates, etc., etc., etc., all at our fingertips. And shopping. We can buy almost anything, at any time, with a simple “click”. It is hard not to delight in this dazzling world.
Our ubiquitous virtual experience, however, is largely governed and orchestrated by corporations whose only aim is profit. Many of these corporations offer what appears to be free services; email, doc sharing and storage, search engines, community messaging, etc., etc. It seems free because we fail to appreciate that we are paying with our most precious resource: our attention.
Others within the virtual world also seek our attention, where profit is measured in influence that can be leveraged for financial, political, and personal gain. The internet is an attentional economy. This virtual world is a modern midway with carnival barkers employing “clickbait” to snare our attention. The bait beckons us, flashing punchy, brief phrases, provocative imagery, and eye-catching banners that offer promises to fulfill desires we often didn’t know we had; to be enlarged by our participating in groups of “friends” who “like” us; to have our life changed by a purchase—to be transported, however briefly, beyond mundane daily life. The momentary hit afforded by a simple “click” triggers the desire for more. And more. The aim is to create addiction.
ATT *#/ EN +@% TIO &^+ N !
The alluring payoffs of the attention economy carry hidden costs. We check our phones, on average, every 10 minutes, spend less that 2 minutes for 70% of these sessions, and webpage visits typically last less that 10 to 20 seconds. Phone prompts, even if we ignore them, can disrupt attention and negatively impact performance on ongoing mental and physical tasks. Even the mere presence of a phone can lead to poorer performance. Media multitasking is common feature of web browsing and, surprisingly, can lead to a decrease in effective multitasking in other contexts, as individuals become more prone to distraction by irrelevant material.4 Restless, unsettled, alert, we scan the world, but have difficulty giving anything our full attention. Perhaps most importantly, our attention is in danger of being hijacked, as our minds are lured to the addictive tug of “more.”
Greatest Hazard
We cannot escape the cyber world we live in; cannot hold our breath, plug our ears, or close our eyes and hope it will go away. Even if we could, most of us would not want to.
Attentiveness is what has been eroded and attentiveness is what needs to be reclaimed. Attentiveness, not to a virtual world, but to the one we live our lives in, the one pressing on our skin, the one with cries and laughter, with flowers and weeds, with loves and friendships. These may lack the immediate buzz-hit of the fast-moving virtual stream, but that stream threatens to sweep us away from life, away from ourselves, numbing us to the awe and mystery of being here, now, alive. We are imperiled and much is at stake. Kierkegaard, that early Casandra of our modern age, warns:
“The greatest hazard of all, losing the self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss—an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc.—is sure to be noticed.”
May you find peace in this frenzied holiday season.
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- Nicolas Malebranche, a 17th century philosopher; cited at the beginning of Edward Hirsch’s wonderful book, “How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry”.
- Romans 7:14
- See, for example, “What is Sacred?” https://decembersongs.com/what-is-sacred/ and James Croft’s humanist understanding of the soul, https://www.ethicalstl.org/food-for-the-humanist-soul-james-croft-edd-outreach-director/
- For a detailed review of the impact of digital devices on cognitive functioning, see https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00605/full
Thank you