Put up barriers. Put up the proper chuting to direct what’s urgent
and unimportant to the right people.
Walker Percy, one of the last great southern novelists, has a
powerful passage in Lancelot, based on Percy’s own struggle with
idleness and addiction to entertainment. In the book, the harried
narrator walks outside of his Mississippi mansion and, for the first
time in years, simply stops. He steps outside his bubble and
experiences the moment. “Can a man stand alone, naked, and at his
ease, wrist flexed at his side like Michelangelo’s David, without
assistance, without diversion... in silence?” he asks.
Yes. It was possible to stand. Nothing happened. I
listened. There was no sound: no boats on the river, no
trucks on the road, not even cicadas. What if I didn’t listen
to the news? I didn’t. Nothing happened. I realized I had
been afraid of the silence.It is in this stillness that we can be present and finally see truth. It
is in this stillness that we can hear the voice inside us.
How different would the world look if people spent as much time
listening to their conscience as they did to chattering broadcasts? If
they could respond to the calls of their convictions as quickly as we
answer the dings and rings of technology in our pockets?
All this noise. All this information. All these inputs.
We are afraid of the silence. We are afraid of looking stupid. We
are afraid of missing out. We are afraid of being the bad guy who
says, “Nope, not interested.”
We’d rather make ourselves miserable than make ourselves a
priority, than be our best selves.
Than be still... and in charge of our own information diet.