Great idea, well expressed. Thank you for this! I recently finished C.S. Lewis’ work The Screwtape Letters, which is a fascinating exploration of human behavior whether you call yourself religious or not. As I read your quote from Pascal, I couldn’t help remembering a similar thought expressed by Lewis — from the literary perspective of Screwtape, a demon from hell. This demon expressed a loathing for silence that all demons apparently shared. Silence and Music, he said, are the two evils that make up heaven, while hell is perpetually filled with noise. Consider the possibility that the balance of silent reflection (facing yourself and coming to know yourself in the way you described in this article) and making metaphorical music (the positive interactions we have with other human beings) may be the defining characteristic of humanity’s search for happiness. When I think about every unfortunate world event, historical blunder, or societal failure of which I know, they all seem to have their roots in noise.
Like the characters in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, people seem to create problems out of thin air, either through boredom, miscommunication, jumping to conclusions or talking themselves out of them. If that is the case, the question that naturally follows is of course, what can be done? We can hardly fight the noise with more noise. I doubt that raising awareness about yet another social justice cause will cause anyone to put their phone away for an hour. It will just give them something else to tweet angrily about. It’s like you said, almost everyone believes themselves to be self-aware (and I suppose that makes me self-aware enough to know that I’m one of those) so public awareness of a need simply becomes another distraction from the private awareness we’re looking for. Personally, being a person of faith, I’m of the opinion that we could benefit from a return to the age-old principle of a Sabbath day. Collectively agreeing that for at least one day in the week there will be less diversions and more reflection is, to me, a practical application of an abstract ideal. I’m curious, however, to see what other solutions are out there that my perspective and experience haven’t allowed me to identify. Perhaps a good part 2 to this article?
