Today I had a day off from work after many days and hours of tiresome retail drudgery. Yesterday, I planned to spend most of my time out of the house. I was going to ride my bike for a few hours, spend some time in the cool summer air, and rest in a coffee house, reading, writing, and sipping a latte. It sounded so glorious. But I didn't get to do any of that. Why not?
First, I wanted to finish the dishes. But as I did the dishes, I decided to watch a couple of videos. So then I had to finish the video I was watching after I was done with the dishes. That reminded me of another quick video I thought would be nice to be able to watch while I had free time. Then I checked Facebook and e-mail. Then I looked something up that I had on my mind and read about it for a little while. By then, the day out would be shorter than planned, but still good. But then I felt tired and thought it would be nice to just relax a little on my day off and watch a full-length film. After that, I realized I didn't really want to bike all the way to a coffee shop, but I still thought I would go for at least an hour long bike ride. But I didn't. I was hungry and decided I would eat first, and watch a couple of funny videos. After eating, I watched a few more. By the time I ended up actually stepping outside, it was 7 p.m. I just went for a twenty minute walk, wondering how I could waste an entire day on pretty useless entertainment and nothing else.
Honestly, I'm mad. Not at the allure of the Internet. Not at the carnival of sights and sounds and information that boasts every conceivable attraction to CAPTURE my mind. I'm mad at myself. Because I could have walked away from it.
As I walked around my neighborhood, I wondered if I even could walk away from it. Do I have that kind of will-power or am I some kind of addict?
I remember when I was young, I saved a bunch of money to purchase a top-of-the-line camera for $800. Five years later, I watched as a photographer tried to capture beauty with his camera, spending more time looking through his lens than anything else. Later he would look at the mountain tops on his laptop in his small bedroom in apparent awe. But how much less was this than if he had sat in the grass, looking with his own eyes at that mountain, the breeze flowing over him and the smell of earth all around him as he dug his fingernails into the ground. I took my camera and threw it against the wall over and over, smashing it into unusable fragments.
I remember when I lived alone in a small room in a city where I hardly had any friends and few ideas of how to make them. I occupied myself with the Internet to unhealthy extremes and I knew it had to be stopped. So I left it at a place I thought for sure it would be stolen and when I came back it was gone.
I remember when I found out that many of the metals used in electronics were mined in African countries where warlords forced women and children to slave away deep in the mines in order to fund their endless feuds. I gave away my iPod. I reduced my cell phone to its simplest form without any bells or whistles. This cell phone was the only electronic I owned at the time.
I am not saying technology is evil. And electronic devices hardly compose an exhaustive list of technology. Windmills and penicillin are technology. However, a lot of technology does create a lot of alienation: alienation between humans and God, alienation between humans and creation, alienation between humans and other humans, and alienation between the human and himself or herself.
How can I truly confront the deep parts of myself when I can simply distract myself with more online articles to read and videos to watch? I am not giving myself time or space to discover how I delude myself, how I can grow, how I can help others, how I can better love, how I can forgive. I can hide in the never-ending hole of web browsing. I can immerse myself in videos and books. I can work long hours and clean up the house. I can do so much to cover up that small, still voice that is waiting to give me direction. That is waiting to show me how I can be used for full potential in this world. I am ignoring that which would give me peace, hope, and love. I am ignoring something that would give me an incredible story to live. I am giving it up it to be on the sidelines, a spectator of stale tricks and cheap thrills.
I cannot wait until the Appalachian Trail to put things in their rightful place. I must begin now. I must make the time to be still. To be silent and alone. To pray. To listen. To figure out who I am and how I can be more consistent and faithful to the person I want to and am designed to be.
