External Solutions to Internal Problem

For the past five hundred years or so, we’ve searched for external solutions to our internal problem. We have been deluded by the forces of economics and religion to believe that the purpose of life is hard work. So every time we feel empty, dissatisfied, or unfulfilled, we work harder and put in more hours. This trend can be traced to Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, Christopher Columbus, and the Age of Discovery. With Luther, laziness became a sin, and with Columbus and the Age of Discovery, the developed world’s eyes turned to new and unfamiliar places, to novelty as an end goal.

These obsessions became widespread during the industrial age and they have only strengthened in the more than two centuries since. Our time periods are not named for human development anymore, like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. We are currently in the jet age, the information age, the nuclear age, and the Digital Revolution. We measure our years in work products, not personal development.

Ultimately, the solution is not digital. It is as analog as the human body. Technology can do many things for us—extend our lives, keep us safe, expand our entertainment options—but it cannot make us happy. The key to well-being is shared humanity, even though we are pushing further and further toward separation.

We don’t seem to trust our human instincts. When we’re faced with a difficult problem, we search for the right tech, the right tool, and the right system that will solve the issue: bulletproof coffee, punishing exercise, paleo diets, goal-tracking journals, productivity apps. We think our carefully designed strategies and gadgets will make us better. My goal is to dispel that illusion and help you to see that we are not better, but in many cases, worse.

- Celeste Headlee, Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving. 2020.

Cult of Efficiency

We are members of the cult of efficiency, and we’re killing ourselves with productivity.

What is the cult of efficiency? It’s a group whose members believe fervently in the virtue of constant activity, in finding the most efficient way to accomplish just about anything and everything. They are busy all the time and they take it on faith that all their effort is saving time and making their lives better.
But they’re wrong. The efficiency is an illusion. They believe they’re being efficient when they’re actually wasting time.

hedonic treadmill

We have endured incredible hardship and unspeakable tragedy, but we developed a coping mechanism to prevent us from slipping into despair. It’s called the hedonic treadmill. It’s a tendency in our species to adjust our mood so that no matter what terrible things happen, we quickly return to the same level of happiness we enjoyed before the traumatic event.

There’s a catch, though: It also works in reverse. In other words, if an incredibly happy change occurs in our lives, we don’t move forward as happier people. Instead, the hedonic treadmill brings us right back to the state of mind we were in before the raise in pay, new house, or lost weight. It means that, for many of us, we are never satisfied.

- Celeste Headlee, Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving. 2020.

Fight off Non-essentialism

We have all observed the exponential increase in choices over the last decade. Yet even in the midst of it, and perhaps because of it, we have lost sight of the most important ones.

As Peter Drucker said, “In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time—literally—substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”

We are unprepared in part because, for the first time, the preponderance of choice has overwhelmed our ability to manage it. We have lost our ability to filter what is important and what isn’t. Psychologists call this “decision fatigue”: the more choices we are forced to make, the more the quality of our decisions deteriorates.

 Here's how an Essentialist would approach the closet:

1. Explore and Evaluate
2. Eliminate
3. Execute

ESSENCE: WHAT IS THE CORE MIND-SET OF AN ESSENTIALIST?

This part of the book outlines the three realities without which Essentialist thinking would be neither relevant nor possible. One chapter is devoted to each of these in turn.

1. Individual choice: We can choose how to spend our energy and time. Without choice, there is no point in talking about trade-offs.

2. The prevalence of noise: Almost everything is noise, and a very few things are exceptionally valuable. This is the justification for taking time to figure out what is most important. Because some things are so much more important, the effort in finding those things is worth it.

3. The reality of trade-offs: We can’t have it all or do it all. If we could, there would be no reason to evaluate or eliminate options. Once we accept the reality of trade-offs we stop asking, “How can I make it all work?” and start asking the more honest question “Which problem do I want to solve?”

- Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. 2014.

Life-giving Network

The ground for generosity is the awareness that the world is funded by a generous, active God who has made creation as a gift that keeps on giving, and that we are on the receiving end of that endless gift-giving! 

Thus we need not and cannot imagine that we are self-made or self-sufficient. Nor does it follow that “I made my money and it belongs to me.” Responsible materiality recognizes that we are each and all embedded in a life-giving network, and we are permitted the glorious chance to be full participants in and contributors to that life-giving network. 

- Walter Brueggemann, Materiality as Resistance. 2020.

Tower of Babel

People hear an opposing view, and their response is not to listen but to disagree. It’s as if we live in a Tower of Babel where everyone is speaking a different language and people can’t hear or find common ground.

It all becomes noise.

Morals, views, opinions should be held and strongly defended, of course. Yet the loss of civil discourse is troubling. People tune each other out instantaneously. One word is a trigger to shut someone off.

- Joseph McCormack, Noise: Living and Leading When Nobody Can Focus (2020)

Homeless Minds

in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, 

Zuboff traces the aggressive way in which the great research engines, specifically Google and Facebook, have intruded into the most intimate and personal dimensions of our experience. Indeed our “experience” has been transposed into marketable “behavior,” so that Google and Facebook sell data about our experience to marketers in a way that contributes to the ruthless, uncaring commoditization of our lives. 

She describes our new social reality as one of “exile” in which we experience a loss of a capacity for privacy and intimacy... those with homeless minds (generated by the new intrusive technologies) are not likely to notice those with homeless bodies (of the left out and left behind who live in economic isolation).

 - Walter Brueggemann, Materiality as Resistance. 2020.

Complete Attention in A Hug

 “You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and you shall swear by His name.” —Deuteronomy 10:20 (NASB)

 
I would like to focus on just one word in the above verse: “cling.” In the Hebrew, this word is devek (קבד). To render it as “to cling” is really to sell it short, since the idea is not like clinging to a rock or a tree during a storm so you do not get blown away. This word is an expression of love and respect—an embrace or a hug. In the context of this verse, I render the word as follows: “You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and you shall hug Him….”
 

The Gift of the Sabbath

 
Rabbinic literature teaches that a devek (קבד) is a high and deep stage of spiritual development in which the seeker attaches himself or herself to God and exchanges individuality for a profound partnership with Him. The force behind a devek (קבד) is a love of God and a desire for intimacy or closeness with Him. Is that or is that not the definition of a hug?
 
This would explain why many Orthodox Jews view the requirements of the Sabbath as the gift of the Sabbath. The requirements are not a burdensome bother, filled with restrictions, but an opportunity to draw closer to God in order to enter into a devek (קבד) and receive a hug from Him. The “dos and don’ts” of the law are thus opportunities to connect with Him. This is why David said in Psalm 1:2, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”
 
How could anyone get so excited about laws? The Orthodox Jews could because reading, studying, and meditating on the law of God was an opportunity to enter into a devek (קבד) and receive an embrace from God. Why Do You Go to Church? Consider the gift of the Sabbath. Why do you keep the Sabbath?
 

Why do you go to church?

 
Some people see it merely as a family or social obligation, or maybe as a way to win favor with God so they can receive some blessings, get some good luck, or secure a passport to heaven. But for others, observing the Sabbath is an opportunity to draw closer to God.
 
You cannot get to heaven by keeping the law. You can get to heaven only by receiving the finished work of Jesus Christ. The law, however, enables you to come to know this Jesus who is taking you to heaven. When you start to really know God and understand His heart, your love for Him grows; and when you love Him, you begin to desire a devek (קבד).
 
When reading Deuteronomy 10:20, therefore, we must take note that God is not calling us to cling to Him like a parasite or a leech. This thing is two-sided. God will cling to us if we will cling to Him. He will give us a hug if we will give Him a hug. The picture is that of two lovers embracing each other. Devek (קבד) is not a group hug. It is a hug between two individuals—you and God. When God embraces you, it is as if there is no other being in this universe but you. He gives you His full, complete attention in a devek (קבד).
 

- Chaim Bentorah, Hebrew Word Study, Vol 1 .