Full article at http://jeffa.co/139
We now have the opportunity to fill every waking moment with something… anything. Idle time doesn’t exist anymore. Powering down and turning off comes with this looming sense of guilt that “I should be doing something.” As if our sense of self is not just subtly, but wholly tied up in doing.
The philosopher Blaise Pascal said this:
All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone
A deeper part of us knows that being perpetually distracted isn’t right, but also knows what happens in those moments of quiet. That we’ll actually have to face what we’ve been ignoring for so long. That we’ll come face to face with our insecurities, feelings not felt, and dreams we’ve set aside while we plug away being a model citizen and believer in the good ol’ American dream.
Comedian Louis CK says this beautifully in a conversation with Conan O’Brian about why he hates cell phones. He calls it the forever empty… the knowledge that it’s all for nothing and you’re all alone...
