Having just waded through my taxes, the stress of modern life rears its head. The tax process is bad enough, but throughout we deal with websites that don’t work, printers that don’t print, computers that don’t compute…
All this is just metaphor for how we live today. We are burdened with stress that pervades our very being, with sensory overload, with constant demands on our attention: debt, employment, minute-by-minute news feeds, car breakdowns, relationship problems, global scenes of crime and violence and politics, online friend overloads, electronic chipping and chirping, ambient noise, schedules and calendars, newsletters and updates and more emails…
None of this is natural to us. These are not the stressors we’re designed to deal with. And all of it takes us further and further from where we need to be, both as individuals and as a society. What would it take to check out out of it all? Can we just say “no”?
I refuse to live this way, but, of course, the price for just saying no to it all is extreme alienation from society. I am comfortable with this choice because I am convinced that there are both private and communal forms of madness. The way of life that defines middle-class America is communal madness. It is about plunging at top speed across the surfaces of things driven by fear that otherwise one might miss something. This is delusional behavior: our condition is one of radical finiteness in space and time. Thus we can hope to experience only the minutest sliver of what transpires. We may be compelled to immerse ourselves in the minutia of daily routine, but, however necessary, that is not ultimately satisfying. Hence the fevered onrush.
Hey, Michael, it’s good to know you’re out there. Believe it or not, I read your comment without looking at the sender and halfway through said to myself, “This sounds like Michael.” Makes me smile.
On a serious note, one line of yours especially caught my attention: “Our condition is one of radical finiteness in space and time.” I can’t think of a more eloquent argument for living mindfully, fully present in the moment. More and more, I am convinced that the present moment is all that we have.
And, for what it’s worth, one reason I wrote the post is because I, more than you (I, think) need social interaction. But virtually every time I leave the house to seek it, I am overwhelmed by sounds and sights that I can’t shut out.
When you truly open yourself up to the Universe and relegate Self to the margins or background of consciousness, that is exactly what is supposed to happen. Focusing on humankind involves a limiting of awareness, particularly when you interact with the Benighted Ones. Just how well can you hope to function at their level? The flight of a Blue Jay or the patter of soft rain on a tin roof are so much more engaging.