Distraction

                                                              Distraction

                                                        by Marco M. Pardi

“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.” Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) The Conquest of Happiness. 1930.

My delay in publishing this piece is partially due to the recent elections.  Since a troll has penetrated this site with the intent to disrupt or destroy my marriage I have published my analysis of the election through a different venue. That this troll will not confront me directly is not surprising; even dimmer lights can sometimes perceive their own ill preparedness.

All comments welcome.  To those readers who have been hesitant to comment or ask questions, please be assured you may do so freely. In recent days several new people have signed on as followers, enabling them to comment freely, and it is hoped they will. All previous posts are open for comment by clicking on “uncategorized”. Reader participation keeps this site vibrant. MMP

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“I’m bored.” “So read a book.”  “What’s on tv?” and on and on. Sound familiar?  Now that I’m mostly retired from much of the work I’ve done for years I am facing the “What day is it?” syndrome.  During those years I’ve seen several older acquaintances and relatives slide into increasingly longer bouts of nodding off in front of the daytime television. I could never imagine that.  Still can’t.

Writing this blog is meaningful to me. I hope that’s obvious.  Some would say get out and travel.  I’ve done that, but I’ve also traveled so much during my work years I sometimes joked that I should get paid for patrol duties. I always found the best part of personal traveling was the odd chance I would meet and communicate with someone intelligent and interesting.  But the trips on which that did not happen are starting to outweigh the few on which it did.  And I’ve never been a person to compile a “must see” list; I have mountains of photographs I never look at.  So, what now?

Although I went through the comic book phase before the plethora of Super Power comics erupted, there were some notables. Superman had X-Ray vision, etc., Batman had remarkable strength, and so on but my favorite superpower was featured on an evening radio show.  Each evening, at the appointed hour, the announcer would intone, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? LaMonte Cranston knows. He is…….The Shadow.” How amazing! How challenging! What could one do to develop such a power? And, what would one do with it?

Perhaps influenced by The Shadow I ventured deeply into the maelstrom of my ever active, sometimes almost kaleidoscopic mind.  Coming up for air I looked around at classmates and wondered if they, too, had such a never ending torrent of thoughts.  If so, what were they, what were they based on, what would it be like to get inside that theater?      

In college I explored Psychology, took some courses, got A’s, but decided the field was two dimensional.  It seemed to have pre-ordained boxes into which to fit people, and had nowhere near the depth I was seeking.  I realized the existential impossibility of “getting into someone’s head”, but still wondered how and why people seek distraction.  Oh, I realize the therapeutic value of distraction at times, and I’ve often been told I “think too much.” To which I wanted to respond, “And, what, you walk around blank?” Further along in college I was still curious and took a graduate level course in Criminology.  I did this specifically at that level because the course included face-to-face interviews with prisoners, from petty crime to hard time.  In having those talks I found substantial verification of a claim I had often heard: More than anything else, prisoners fear solitary confinement.  That is, real solitary confinement with no television, radio, reading material or ways to communicate with other prisoners.  From the several interviews I did I got the impression older prisoners feared this less than did the younger ones.  Older prisoners told me younger prisoners sometimes volunteered to willing guards to “take a turn in the box”, to see how long they could last.  Not long.  And, the guards cooperated out of the belief that letting them experience it would keep them in line for the duration of their sentence.  I have no data by which to evaluate that but it’s an interesting thought.

In the 1990’s I flew to Ireland to spend 10 days with two aged priests in hospice care.  Lifelong friends of my family, they were of the Colomban (“Irish Catholic”) order.  One was Archbishop of Hanoi when the communists took over and put him in a solitary dungeon for 15 years. The other was in solitary confinement in China for 10 years. Neither was in any shape to talk about his life and were in fact quite near death.  But they had been released years ago, visited my family members in the U.S., and were then mentally sound if not physically normal.  Traveling all the time, I never got to connect with them until those 10 days at the Colomban hospice in Navan, some kilometers north of Dublin.  I was never able to have a conversation about how one adapts with nothing to “distract” the self, how one lives in a completely empty cell with no contact with the outside world.  Of course, we have better known examples of solitary confinement, such as Nelson Mandela. But I understand he did have a kind of limited social life with his jailers.  And people were allowed to visit from time to time.

Psychiatric studies have shown that people in isolation, as well as many non-human animals, sink into severe mental illness fairly quickly. This has been shown repeatedly in non-human animals who have lost a mate or buddy. Lifespan is dramatically reduced. Even alcohol and drug addiction recovery groups stress strongly that self isolation is destructive and will lead to using again.  Which should raise the question of whether “social media” are adequate replacements for face-to-face human interaction.

We are now seeing numerous studies and articles citing a decline in inter-personal skills and even an upsurge in previously unthinkable hostility attributed to the growth in social media.  The ability to hide behind a “screen name” seems to bring out outrageous behavior. Yet, I do not think that behavior is generated by the media as much as it is facilitated by the media.  So does that mean some people we meet on a cordial face-to-face basis are not who they appear? Apparently so.

But distraction has been a holy grail for a long time, well understood and utilized by the marketing specialists. I’ve known people who, feeling badly, go shopping.  The phrase “buyer’s remorse” has become commonplace. “I thought this would make me happy” is a common refrain. Instead of devoting time to introspect and to address the causes of their unsettled state people are encouraged to direct their attention to externals, to mindless television programs, to the latest SALE, to the latest earphones that must be operative even during solitary walks around the neighborhood. Dating services employ questions such as, What music do you listen to, who are your favorite actors, and so on. How many of them encourage a patron to ask their date, Who are you?

Along with the information Age we are experiencing information overload.  But the real problem with the information is its ability to capture the mind even when its about to make a self discovery.  We have made ourselves open to a multi-verse of information which, by its speed and it volume, deprives us of being able to process any significant part of it for its relevance to us.

Decades ago there was great interest in Tantric disciplines.  The “Right Hand Tantra” and the “Left Hand Tantra” were briefly examined before the next fad arose and they were forgotten.  But the principles remain.  One form, the Right Hand, espoused an often austere meditation while the Left Hand opened itself to all of life. We can appreciate this distinction when we contrast being in an utterly silent room with being in a crowded restaurant where the noise level is such that no particular sound is intelligible.  I found some of my best study opportunities in college where in the loud, noisy snack bar.

In a silent room do we feel the urge to turn on the tv?  In a noisy room do we feel urge to flee?  The old library at Harvard had a noisy ventilation system, with random clacks and pops.  The upgrade brought utter silence. Many students fled.

How much distraction do we need in our lives? And what purpose is it serving?