Mahseh: A Nursery for the Life of the Mind
Sitting at lunch in a restaurant the other day, I spied a young man handling five types of media at once. He was working on his Mac, listening to music on an ipod with one ear, with the other, having a conversation on his cell phone, interrupting himself to text on the same devise, writing on a pad, and glancing at a book. Wait, that’s five types of media, six types of communication.
I was tired just watching him. But now I’m sitting at my computer. I check my email each time I need a break. Solitaire is a mouse click away to compensate for my slow dial-up connection. Resisting the urge to check www.foxnews.com every five minutes is a battle. My cell phone rests next to me. Books and notes are stacked all around me. Music wafts up from a CD playing downstairs.
How am I any different than the twenty-something at lunch the other day? Is there any hope for either of us?! Maggie Jackson maintains “wisdom is knowing what to overlook” in her new book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Christine Rosen in an article entitled “The Myth of Multitasking”[1] cites various studies, authors, and simple common sense that doing many things at once hurts economies, productivity, and people themselves. Nicholas Carr cries out for “open spaces” where “deep reading” and “deep thinking” can take place[2]. Even The Chronicle of Higher Education is concerned that the internet is eroding faculties’, faculties.[3]
The Christian historian D. G. Hart reminds us of the past to address the present. “The monastic ideal of withdrawal from the world in order to cultivate virtue overlapped with the kind of retreat necessary for contemplation and reflection. Consequently, the monasteries emerged as nurseries for the life of the mind” (Religious Studies, ISI Books, p. 67).
MahsehCenter exists as a “nursery for the life of the mind.” Distraction (our problem ever since Genesis 3) must be overcome by time for reflection.
I do not have to answer every email, respond to every “ping,” download the latest video, access every blog, or be concerned with “up to the minute news coverage.” The young man plugged into multiple media at lunch that day may be of a different generation but he is of the same humanity.
What I must do is come apart, before I come apart.
[1] http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking