Kevin’s Conversations: Sensory Overload
So my family embarks on vacation in a few days.
It is an annual endeavor that we have undertaken every year since my wife and I married and we thank God for providing the means and ability to do so. It is a time we all look forward to very much.
We are going to Williamsburg, Virginia, again. We have been there several times before and continue to go back because we have semi-regular arrangements for a stay there and we like much of what there is to see and do in the area.
Of course, we do the amusement parks for the kids as they would be quite disappointed if we didn’t. I confess I like them, too. Among other things, we usually do Colonial Williamsburg and this year we are also planning to take in the history of Jamestown and Yorktown.
I love going through the living history museum that is Colonial Williamsburg and seeing and learning what life was like in the 18th century. My kids may be more enamored with playing in the mud pit at the Brick Maker or counting how many deposits of horse manure they spot in the streets while my wife longs to peruse the shops, but I savor watching the Blacksmith work his craft or learning how meals were prepared or taking in how government was conducted in the Capitol building. I look forward to taking in even more things of the like in Jamestown and Yorktown.
I yearn for a simpler time. No, the Colonials did not have anywhere near the comforts and conveniences back in those days as we have today. In many ways they worked much harder than we do these days, at least from a physical perspective. If I had to be a blacksmith or a servant toiling over the open fires in the kitchen on these 100 degree and humid summer days, methinks my yearning would quickly come to an end. 🙂
And, yes, there were immoral and problematic issues that they dealt with that we don’t have to today. Colonial Williamsburg does not hide the reality of slavery that was very much a part of the culture. And the tensions and violence leading up to and through the Revolution did not make life easy.
However, I still have the yearning for that overall simpler time. When there were no phones or tv or internet or multi-billion dollar corporations. When we didn’t know all the ills of the world. When there weren’t a million different activities going on at once. When there wasn’t such constant pressure to meet the bottom line.
We’ve talked about it here before, including even a bit on my post last week.
It often seems like we weren’t made for this. We weren’t made to have this constant stimulation around us 24/7, with perpetual notifications that something is happening. Where we instantly learn of innumerable tragedies that happen around the world and have manifest access to the intimate and heart-wrenching details of many of them. Where we learn the dirt on so many of our leaders and pastors and even neighbors. Where we run ourselves ragged getting involved in so many activities and circumstances demanded by others and our even own consciences while concurrently feeling guilty about the myriad of other opportunities that we pass by.
In many ways it’s not apparent that we were made for all of this. Every age of time has had its challenges, some of them presumptively unique. One of our unique challenges is dealing with everything that we can know and do nowadays.
Our souls do not seem capable of handling it all.
And yet, this is where God has placed us. He knew what things would be like today when He created this world. He knew about not only today, but all the days that are yet to come before His Return. He didn’t make a mistake and forget to return before our psyches became irreparably overwhelmed.
“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.” 2 Corinthians 1:8-10
Our afflictions, our struggles, our challenges may be different than those of Paul.
The cure is not.
We aren’t made for it. That’s why God invented the on/off switch. 😉
as i approach my 80th birthday i am aware that the average life span of we women in those days was some 30 years… not much more for men…
i remember that the Bible says precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints and it also says that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked… it must look quite different from where He sits… as a woman, all in all, i’d rather have lived my life now than any other time in history… but what Kevin has observed of our environment is very true
it does weary the mind – almost to destruction
London,
Some have on/off switches that work better than others. 😉
Kevin, many truths in your article. My wife and I both have had to unplug frequently. And I , too, strongly suspect we weren’t made for this. Our brains seem to get more and more scattered, the more we try to take in….
I believe Jesus modeled for us what we need to do to not only cope, but recharge. He himself took time away, by himself, to pray and rest. And if the Son of God himself had to do it while He was here, what makes us think we can manage without it?
I am often a little jealous of my children – they still live in a simpler time. They have a much smaller frame of reference. They are free to just enjoy life.
We may have a somewhat easier life physically now than then, but I think it’s become harder mentally, emotionally, spiritually…..
Yeah, as far as on/off switches go, I have to be quick to admit that a lot of the overload that I get is self inflicted. I can go as far as to say that there are times when our global awareness is necessary, but more often than not I know that I can get caught up in the messiness of the whole world while losing track of the people in my own neighborhood.
There is a balance there somewhere, but I’ve always been uncoordinated.
I’m not very good at the on/off switch either, at least when it comes to electronics. It can do a lot of good to be “off” more often.
However, part of our challenge is even if we’re “off” most of the time, we still can get an overabundance of bad news from others in just normal conversation. We still will hear of so many of the bad things happening in our culture, country, and globally. We’ll take in a higher quantity of bad news than at any other time in history. So we can intentionally avoid some of the excess, but not all of it.
well, i was listening to a discussion of the eruptions from the sun – i guess a large coronal mass ejection (is that the name?) shut down the electrical power in some part of eastern Canada and New York… somewhere up there, anyway, so maybe God will use His on/off switch… make sure your batteries are charged 🙂
FWIW – we were “off the grid” on our boat for a month one time… i turned on the radio and the news said that we were going to war with Iraq – say what? i wasn’t even sure i knew where Iraq was and why on earth we were going to war with them? … and we were canoeing in B.C. when our guys walked on the moon (47 years ago tomorrow?) – didn’t miss the excitement one bit – more concerned with a grizzly sow and her two cubs that were prowling about and the fact that it was raining every single day – it is interesting what takes precedent when it’s personal… and what is rewarding, also
I have to face the fact that I’m a slave to tech.
I am a blogger,I have two email accounts, a Twitter account, and a Facebook account.
I have a phone, two computers, and an iPad.
They are connected,so if you call or text me, you call and text on all the devices at once.
Everything we post here is seen by thousands of people and many of them respond to what they saw.
We have a pretty large network of readers and sources, to say nothing of friends and family.
I was born an information junkie…when I was a teenager I had 22 magazine subscriptions.
Now I follow over a thousand people and news sources on Twitter.
I’m terribly afraid I’ll miss something.
The result is that I’m always in a state of alert, always reacting to whatever strange sound these damn devices are making to notify me of something.
I’m always a little tense, always ready to answer something or somebody.
Writing for a blog has made it very difficult to write books…there is a huge difference in how you do both.
My attention span has narrowed so that reading actual books is more difficult…the one thing that was never hard for me has become a chore.
Prayer is a strain…I have too many voices in my head speaking at the same time.
It has quite literally made me sick.
It’s an addiction, like smoking or alcoholism.
I only break free when I am able to get up my mountain…where there is no cell service, no internet.
It takes at least a couple of days to get over the stress of having no stress.
Someday, I think I’ll go there for good.
Might be in an urn though…
Michael,
I am sure you’ve probably heard this, but the things you’re afraid of missing probably don’t matter as much as they’ve led you to believe they do.
I was suffering the same thing before my heart surgery. Being in the hospital over a week with no outside stimulus, (there was zero phone reception while I was in there) and then the seemingly arduous recovery process, pretty much broke me of the addiction.
Do whatever it takes to cut back the voices – there are very few that are actually important.
And you have my prayers.
Thank you, Owen.
Keep praying, I feel like hell. 🙂
One of the positives of having this heart condition is that I have to control stress…I can literally feel things going south when things get stressful.
Jean and Kevin and EricL are really helping me take time away from here and I’m learning to shut down at night.
I also have a new rule that when I’m with another human, the phone goes away.
I’m getting there…slowly.
Thanks again for the prayers and for your contributions here.
You’re welcome, Michael. Glad to hear you have help.
The last time I went to my own peaceful mountain place, I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that, not only did I have cell service, but I even had a decent data signal.
Almost makes me want to pick up a standalone GPS device.
Also makes me realize that it has been nearly two years since I have been there. Need to head out again soon.
Kman your post sparked a thought that I ponder every now and then.
We humans have an enemy, Satan.
He hates us, he hates God.
I think he has made modern life very hard and difficult for humans so they won’t have time to think about God.
Or even have time to fellowship or commune with God.
With the struggle for sustainability in life and with over burdensome taxation we are kept in a Sisyphus position.
We go the distance in our lives never really catching up.
The carrot on a stick perpetually dangles in front of us promising us that one day we will get caught up.
Ya when our time is up and Jesus calls out our name, then and only then will most of us get “caught up.”
Until then blog on, tweet and instagram, face book cause it don’t make a hill of beans in the end.
I water my lawn and smoke my cigar with my glass of two fingers, and watch my Saint Agustine grass grow.
No phone, no iPad, no internet, just me and my hose.
Barefooted, connected to the earth, grounded to the dust from whence I have come and to which my container will return.
Death levels all.
The only good is to partake of life in the present, for enjoyment is from the hand of God.
Everything is ordered in time and people are subject to time in contrast to God’s eternal character.
The world is filled with injustice, which only God will adjudicate.
Respect and reverence God and keep His commandments.
And all will be well with us.
In this life it is best to simply enjoy God’s gifts, knowing how much He loves all of us.
“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever….
And God Almighty is always there, ever living and ever loving each and every human.
You are loved.
You are favored above the angels.
God says:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore am I drawing you to my self with many loving kindnesses.”
God is love.
Love one another.
Futurist Ray Kurzweil told a Seattle conference specific ways in which technology is already improving our lives.
For example, while there’s a general perception that the world’s getting worse, “What’s actually happening is our information about what’s wrong in the world is getting better.
A century ago, there would be a battle that wiped out the next village, you’d never even hear about it.”
Quotes of two of Kurzweil’s other interesting insights:
“We’re only crowded because we’ve crowded ourselves into cities.
Try taking a train trip across the United States, or Europe or Asia or anywhere in the world. Ninety-nine percent of the land is not used… we don’t want to use it because you don’t want to be out in the boondocks if you don’t have people to work and play with.
That’s already changing now that we have some level of virtual communication…”
[And on the potential of human genomics] “It’s not just collecting what is basically the object code of life that is expanding exponentially.
Our ability to understand it, to reverse-engineer it, to simulate it, and most importantly to reprogram this outdated software is also expanding exponentially.
Genes are software programs.
It’s not a metaphor.
They are sequences of data.”