The sun is shining in a perfect fashion through the pine tree out behind the house. Let no one say that Washington isn’t a magnificent place, maybe the best place on this planet. Here are some of its marvelous attributes. 1. It is green, green like a World Cup match for the Irish national team. 2. It is cool, but not cold, warm, but not hot. On an idle Tuesday afternoon when every other relative that I have is, I am sure, indoors, I sit here on the back porch enjoying the beauty and peace. 3. It is progressive. Every other relative of mine would call it liberal, I think progressive has much less negative connotations. So I sit here in the cool afternoon sun, reading my not so progressive Outside Magazine, day dreaming about my up coming move and follow-on packing trip into the Cascades and all around loving life.
It has been an interesting few days and with my new freedom of solitude, I have pontificated, among other things, the meaning of life, the value of the “church”, the speed of our existence, and the futility of it all. Solomon is quoted often that “all is futile.” What does that mean, all is futile? Does that mean give up? Does it mean not care? When asked what the two biggest problems today are, most people answered, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Funny seeing that the answers are apathy and ignorance, in my opinion. So this time we are going to spend together is going to be a compilation of about three different things that I have read recently, one radio show that I caught the middle of just yesterday, and my own thoughts thrown in just to keep the painfully slow interested.
If all is futile then even trying to voice a solution is pointless, which means that writing these words or thinking these thoughts are a waste. But even though the wisest man that ever lived said it, I am still, pig-headily going to plow on, thinking otherwise. I have to, otherwise I would kill something, like this scary looking spider that has come to collect her silk entombed meals.
My solution, today, is… SLOW DOWN!!!
In a blog past I mentioned a new philosophy I have recently come to hold. “Start slow & taper off” At first when I read that and started referencing it in my daily encounters, it was just a funny saying and more of a reaction maker than anything, but today it has become more true in my thinking.
Here is why. Aaron Vederoff, my current landlord and good friend, is a 72 year old “retired but active” racquetball player. He is a wonderful person to talk to, is more than funny in a dry Jewish sort of way, and has his annoy quirks like the rest of us. One of those quirks is the insatiable desire Aaron has to collect things. He is frugal enough to be called a cheapskate, but obviously shares his life as I am mooching off his generosity even now. His house is a pile of papers; news print from the depression, magazines and letters from magazines that are collecting faster than they can be read, and thousands and thousands of interesting articles that Aaron wants to share, but rarely gets around to.
A recent article was handed me because of my new philosophy. Ellen Goodman wrote, Can’t wait to stop hurrying, and was recently published in the local “progressive” daily. She starts her article describing the much lost art of writing letters. Hers is a rant of the pace of life, a longing for times of old when communication took effort and words meant something. I agree with much of what she says, even as I hypocritically type this blog using my high-speed laptop, monitoring my camera cellphone and hoping that I am not missing an important email, like the one from that girl I initiated with yesterday. The point that stuck out the most was when she writes, “Continuous partial attention inevitable feels like a lack of full attention.” Everyone knows that mastering multitasking is getting ahead. If you can get thirty minutes of work accomplished on the thirty minute drive into work, then you can spend an extra thirty minutes at work getting done thirty minutes of work that you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Wow, I have been able to multitask my day into more work than I have every done before. (I say that from the perspective of someone that actually has a place of work, not my own, God forbid!) Accomplishing so much more work today, I have time to do even more tomorrow.
All is futile.
Ellen notes that teenagers are the extreme end of multitaskers. “Instant-messaging while they are talking on the cellphone, downloading music and doing homework.” She is mostly right, I doubt they do homework, but being one of the types that feels called to masochistically subject myself to the frantic, if not chaotic life that adolescents lead, my ears perk when their lives are mentioned. How, I ask, can this help me to speak into their lives and be a light? (To all the youth out there that read this, ha, ha, jokes on you, I really do have an agenda.) I think the answer is subtly mentioned in the same article.
“We suffer from the illusion that we can expand our personal bandwidths, connecting to more and more. Instead, we end up overstimulated, overwhelmed and unfulfilled.”
Being unfulfilled is huge. I know on my darkest days, it is a personal fulfillment that is most lacking. I know it is for my dad too. So, what can I do, how can I show those around me how to be fulfilled when even I struggle. Listening! Really listening! Not the multitasking-you-are-as-important-as-this-song-sms-e-mail-tv-show-book-advertisement-and-bird type listening that everyone is so capably willing to bestow. I want to listen while looking into your eyes, the entire world gone except you and me; but, as my wonderfully, trying to be more, patient sister can attest through my multiple failures to do so, I suck at it.
Maybe there is a way I can practice? An article in May 05s Outside points to one such technique, pain! In this article, Mark Jenkins is recounting a climbing accident that brought him to master the art of single-tasked, mind focused accomplishment. He too is sucked into today’s world of move fast and do, do, do, but when his broken wrist forces him to do the one thing his body needs and mind rejects, he sees the light.
“An injury worth the time will slow you down. Precisely what we all desperately need. An injury will make you do one thing at a time. You’ll re-remember that multitasking only means you’re doing several things poorly. Injured, you must focus on one thing for it to happen at all. With this singularity of focus come happiness, for you have been released from distraction, the most corrosive disease of the 21st-century life.”
It is the several things poorly that I need to learn. It is the several things poorly that cause those around you to see that they are unimportant in your world. To know that we are important is “what we all desperately need.”
My solution, now, is… SLOW DOWN AND LISTEN!!!
(I can now say that the battery of my laptop, in normal usage, has 1:35 minutes of go time. I have been forced to move indoors for the remaining of this post. Which is all the better because I should be wrapping it up anyway.)
Isn’t it wonderful how in just over an hour, we can move and grow? I think so. For all you out there who are doing listening well, kudos to you. For those who accomplished four other things while reading this, kudos to you too.
It is tomorrow.
Jason
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It's indeed ironic that I'm talking with a client, sending an email, and jotting notes to myself while reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteI prefer things being sped up. I have a lot that I want to do, and very little time to do it in. If I could survive with less than 4 hours of sleep a night, I would. I've even contemplated getting some speed or something so that my days can be longer, because I need to cram my activities into every waking moment.
Slowing down is nice if you can afford to. I'll slow down when I'm rich or dead.
Good thoughts. This is exactly what Psalms 23.2 is talking about.
ReplyDelete"He makes me lie down..." (rest, relax, stop running, recharge, refresh, reflect, meditate on Him.)
...in green pastures" That means anything, like a broken wrist, lost job, illness, lost relationship..., anything that causes us to stop and refocus on what's really important, Jesus and His will, is not something to resent or resist, but is actually a "green pasture", something to welcome. Makes life's "pills" much easier to swallow.
Hey, Jason!
ReplyDeleteThought provoking! Just a note--our biggest comment about our recent visit with you was how amazingly you listened when with Jim--very obviously different than when you were young! So you've begun to live it even if you didn't realize it yet. He felt very respected.
Also, I have a quote from Elisabeth Elliot--my favorite author. Do you know of her? Her husband, Jim, was killed as a missionary by the Auca Indians a long time ago. This quote is from her book titled "Be Still My Soul". "A writer once said, "Mary's (Jesus Mother) was the purposeful emptiness of a virginal heart," not a formless emptiness without meaning. Like Mary, we are best suited as Christ-bearers if we too have a purposeful emptiness, a readiness to be filled. If we fill up on trivialities or anxieties, we won't have room in our hearts for Him."
"Purposeful emptiness"
Ponder that!
Love in Christ,
Jeanne
J,
ReplyDeleteI'd have to agree that your ability to listen has improved considerably from when I knew you in high school.
But I'd disagree with the anonymous poster. Using religion to excuse laziness or sloth is a crutch. Someone could be working their hardest to minister religious teachings, and in that situation a broken wrist or illness would absolutely be a negative. Or, I don't know - how about if you're unable to pay your bills and have to live on the street? That's a positive? Nope.
Perhaps in those times, when
ReplyDeletedestitute and alone, or the street, or wounded and shunned, when at our most vulnerable, it is the greatest opportunity to slow down. To look at it negatively would only be succumbing to the dire pain of the situation and a solution would never be within reach. To look at it in a positive would only give the strength to persevere and come out on top. When at the times that are our lowest, we are often reminded of the sweetest things in life, right down to the way we can simply breathe oxygen. So, in essence, what the other anonymous was saying, was perhaps that when we take that time that we crave to save, and we really focus it (because when we are injured, broken, or destitute, what else is there to do with our time?) then the result can be immeasurably beneficial. Should we choose to focus on the positive, and should we choose to focus on that which only truly matters anyway, we will be able to overcome what we are trying to escape. Taking that opportunity to slow down and listen, to pay attention to what is going on in life, to figure out the reason or possible reason for it, I believe, can prove to be extremely beneficial.
Your post was fantastic. Well
said. I appreciate the thoughts well written and the exploration of the human condition.