It’s a fortunate circumstance when you’ve grown such a wonderful circle of people in your life. These are people you can rely upon for a multitude of reasons.

And while there are some people who only come into your life for a season, they still leave a mark that you feel gratitude towards.

While it’s a blessing, there still needs to be room for solitude. The constant pinging and messaging of our interconnected world does wonders to keep us in each other’s lives, but the temptation to keep it running from sun up to sundown is taxing.

There needs to be time to slip away.

Not necessarily the physical act of retreating somewhere off the grid (if that even exists anymore), but the conscious act of turning off the world and tuning in to our own needs. It’s the recharge needed to replenish our empathy, drive and creativity.

In today’s world, the idea of solitude probably needs a new definition. It’s not the physical act of escaping from the world, but the deliberate act of selfishly stealing time for yourself.

Unfortunately, the hardest part about making this happen is removing the guilt felt for those you temporarily ignore during this time. If they’re as close as you think—they’ll understand.

A Further Appeal to Bullhorn Guy

About a month ago, I took my son downtown for art lessons. Having been away from the core for so long, it became an opportune time to revisit the sights and bask in the atmosphere of an area I used to live.

Then it happened.

Mic’d up, speaker-system in tow, were the blaring messages of a preacher.

His minions were handing out flyers along the street while he lamented about sin and the “good news.” On and on he went about our need to hear the message—and that’s when something inside of me snapped.

I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I’ve since figured it out. What it boils down to, and pardon the cadence, is I’m sick of that shit.

I mean, here I am, a Theology major, Religious Studies scholar, high school Religion teacher and someone who has been deeply studying this for over twenty-five years… and while I’m passionate about it, still feel like I know nothing. One thing I can say is the person of Jesus was one of action. That’s why people followed him. In instances where he stopped to preach, people often walked away or became angry with him.

And that’s what set me off.

This preacher, and many like him (including this incident that got my picture in the news), are surrounded by those in need, but choose to yell at random people instead.

Rob Bell has a wonderful reflection called ‘Bullhorn’ which elucidates this frustration beautifully. Basic argument: the bullhorn strategy isn’t working, nor has it ever worked.

In my anger, I approached this person, looked at him and yelled, “God is dead!”

A perplexing (and dare I say ironic) thing for me to yell considering my background, but in that moment, I felt it.

Within a few blocks of us were homeless shelters, soup kitchens and many organizations in need. There is so much work to be done and if all we’ve done with God is reduce a universal creator to demanding we stand on street corners and yell at people while quoting some poorly translated words… then God is dead and we’re responsible for that murder.

The preacher’s response was immediate.

“God isn’t dead—we are! And it’s our sin that did it.”

More yelling.
No dialogue.
No action.

What’s it going to take to bring God back to life?

I don’t know, but I’d like to think I’m working at it.

There is nothing more versatile as a medium than paper. The charge of our digital era is finding ways to replicate what can be done on paper in a more streamlined, efficient and extended way.

The problem is we’ve taken efficiency and function to the be the starting point, training us to change our behaviour for the tool instead of using the tool for our needs. Take, for instance, the word processor.

Developers are constantly adding new features to make work “easier.” While the functions are useful, they mask doing real work in exchange for getting distracted with the presentation. You can play with font styles, sizes, headings, etc. all you want, but that still won’t help with the actual writing.

Same goes for note taking apps, organization systems and even slide deck presentations. And then there’s also the issue of when software is abandoned, migrating to other platforms or even your favourite program getting an upgrade thereby making your older files unusable. You’re left with a decision of figuring out how to transfer your work or accept that it will be lost.

While I still love paper, I’ve gone back to simple text files for most of my digital life.

They’re versatile, small and platform neutral. You can open and use them anywhere, modify them as needed and never have to worry about them being obsolete (or so I’d hope, given how long they’ve been around).

However, their big advantage is they force you to do the work.

Consider the act of putting together a slide deck for a presentation. Most of us get lost in the design of our presentation rather than doing the hard work of making a good presentation. Getting it down first in simple text to see its flow bridges this gap nicely. Save the design for post-production to ensure the technical elements enhance, not distract, from the message.

Yes, there are an incredible number of tools out there, but I am done committing to a company looking to grow its user base in order to sell its platform to advertisers, a larger company or sell me on being a subscriber to their service.

If I find your offering useful in post-production, I’ll consider it. If not, I’m sticking to simple text files.

I hear this claim a lot and no matter who the claimant presents (typically some entrepreneur or corporate manager), I always have to ask:

Have you met a farmer?

A mother?

Or ever consider how narrow your definition of productive is?

It seems we devalue the work of those we take for granted. If we really want to learn how to be insanely productive in life, we might better learn from those that make it happen.

We cannot allay our true feelings to each other. We can share what we’re experiencing, and do it in a way that might be clear, but it will always miss the depth into which they are experienced. However, they are personal and they are true.

What we should do is to sit with our feelings;
speak with them,
learn from them.

Recognize they form who we are and are responsible for the greater part of what makes us unique as a lifeforms on this planet… in this universe. They are a well of wisdom and an inspiration for tomorrow.

They are reminders of tough times and joyous occasions.

They should be embraced and celebrated.

Most importantly, we should find more opportunities to experience them.

Fleeting thoughts.
Bad ideas.
Dead ends.

They belong in the wastebasket.

No need to clutter our mind, notebooks or digital space with them.

Allow me to delve into some crass nomenclature to describe my teenage years:

I was an idiot.

My saving graces were strict parents, smart friends and a desire to learn. I’m thankful they softened the blow for all the mistakes I’ve made and continue to suffer the repercussions from.

One advantage I thought I had actually worked against me as I got older—school was easy.

I could get by (well) with little studying and limited effort as I was quick to grasp ideas and produce what the teacher wanted. Inevitably, this led to bad habits and a psychological roadblock to confront anything challenging; a fixed mindset would be the most pedagogical term.

However, there was still a hunger to learn and a desperate need to be less of an idiot. I’ll defer to my wife whether I’ve made any significant progress on the latter, but the learning has been satiated with developing another skill: learning how to think.

Learning how to think isn’t so much about the process of learning (there’s endless debates on that subject), but of actually doing the hard work of thinking. Not just looking for prepackaged answers that simply need repeating.

In our current environment of automated systems and low friction barriers to accessing information, we are being lulled into a false sense of our own thoughts. What we need is more time to stop, be humble and do the work of thinking on our own.

It’s a skill worth learning.

In considering the absolute necessity of needs for our survival, the list is minimal. It’s the further expansion of our genius and lust for what others have that increase our desire for more.

And while there are pockets of backlash to this ever constant treadmill of increased “needs,” we cannot ignore progress. People travel, eat, communicate and have a desire (or so I hope) to keep healthy.

Which is where we enter into a conflict of discontent.

‘There’s what we need, what we want our needs to be, and a consideration of what others need. That consideration of others is our foundation for ethics, which has been a constant struggle to find the right balance. Somewhere between complete selfishness and altruism at the sake of the self is where we’re trying to land.

As a society, I don’t know if we will ever do it.

As an individual against society—almost impossible.

But, as an individual connecting with something deep within ourselves, beyond ourselves and outside the realm of rationality, a minimum is all we’d ever need.

The greatest experiences; that of the mystics, poets, artists and those committing the feats of the superhuman, are unable to be communicated through language. Even the highest of all attachments, love, is something beyond words and can be felt at the deepest moments.

This is the struggle of the Theologian, or the spiritually devout, as they cannot express the ineffable in a way that will satisfy the populace. It’s the reduction of experience to words. Or worse: labels.

And it’s the approach from doubt, rather than wonder, which makes it impossible to invite others into the depths of our human existence. Yet, it is wonder—not radical doubt—that allowed us to build wonders and discover the stars.

To validate only those experiences that can be described, or labelled, misses the greatest experiences of those that cannot. It is akin to wallowing in dust when what we really want to do is dig into the soil.

Not everything can, or should, be described.

The joy of age is recognizing the need to slow down and the appreciation for the moments of time you can relish in. This comes at a time when the battle for our attention is at a fevered pitch and the mildest of distractions are enough to derail us for huge swaths of our day.

Even the discipline of meditation is being sold as a mass market fix, which, unfortunately, is pitched as a utilitarian solution to accomplish other things. It simply defeats the purpose.

However, there’s something more sinister at play in our world: we are being stripped of our joy.

Yes, major news events have an effect, as does our current state of the world, but this has been happening for decades. The further we entrench ourselves in the world of others, the less we think of our own. And there’s nothing more than technocrats and leaders want than to get lost in their worlds while forgetting our own.

To combat this doesn’t require great efforts. It simply requires the wisdom of recognizing the simple as beautiful and immersing yourself in it.

Put on some music. Sit down. Just listen to it. Do nothing else.
Have a cup of coffee. Sip it slowly. Converse with someone.
Sit outside and listen to nature.
Read something simply for the pleasure of reading it.
Have a hobby for the sole purpose of having a hobby and enjoying it as such.

We can’t travel through time (yet), but we don’t have to be swept up in the torrent pushing us to forget that we live within it.