I’ve heard claims recently that our attention span is shorter than it was; that writers and other creatives should adjust to that expectation. Supposedly, people now want something to read, or to watch, that flashes by in an instant. On TV, we see adverts where people flash through walls or change costume in a trice! It makes me dizzy!
Yesterday, I ventured onto Substack where recently, I ‘followed’ a couple of individuals. And there I learnt how a new update on Substack will allow people ‘to write on the go’. My heart sank. Apparently, there’s high demand for quick, snappy events: the shorter, the better.
Ever-upgrading technology and gadgets allow for all things instant, and we are meant to keep up! Sometimes we allow ourselves to ‘go with the flow’. Sometimes, I feel we should not.
There is so little to keep us still, thoughtful, present in the moment. Some of us take many photographs, stored in a cloud…Is it to prove we were present? Images capture moments for our families in the future, but if we are not ‘present’ ourselves as we snap, only the camera will see. We will not see, nor remember.
The pavements and streets of Cambridge and York – where I was last week – are heaving with international visitors who snap at everything, and we dodge around them – or in exasperation, we walk across.
But do they take it all in? Are they present to what they are doing?
I don’t need to say that for many people, daily life now feels too fast, though I know it has been said by oldies ever since trains were invented!
The worst thing – for me – is constantly needing to prove my identity. I log on, but the system does not believe it’s me, so inwardly I am shouting, “It is me! I’m not an intruder in my own life.”
For the sake of security, there is little trust between organisations, implying ‘someone, somewhere is out to scam you’.
In terms of physical health, Artificial Intelligence is said to offer benefits; but our mental health usually underpins the physical. So, I’m asking what might be its overall effect on us.
Despite my own awareness, I search for answers using AI every day! It’s idle curiosity. It flings me into a dark space where I lose focus and peace of mind. The task I was involved in is entirely interrupted. That is my own fault… I have a choice after all.
As religious liberals, we aim to think for ourselves. We wish to respond to what we hear with erudition, and react to falsehood and to injustice. We are individuals with responsibility for deep discernment.
Yet, ‘out there’ is temptation from talks, podcasts from whomsoever, Instagram images and videos we didn’t ask for – I gave it a go last week and was bombarded by videos and unsought information. I turned it off again.
Likewise, we are not fodder for others’ information. There are always new teachers, gurus, and with it, conflicting news. It’s pressure from outside ourselves.
Each of us carries our own sensibilities. We need to set aside a time for stillness, finding quiet space. As usual, we have done so today in our ‘mindful meditation’. Yet even that is ‘led’.
As a musician, I keep saying: “let’s give musicians and music their due. Let us recognise its significance.” If music is everywhere, we cannot find silence.
Music – let’s define it as ‘organised sound’ is primal for human beings. Yet now, since radio and recording first began, we seem unable to avoid it.
It’s difficult to go anywhere without ‘muzak’. Arriving at an international airport, as we enter the loos, we hear piped music. Tinkle tinkle goes the faint music. We don’t have to hear tinkle tinkle from the adjacent cubicle! We can end up divorced from grounded reality.
Music is taken for granted and therefore abused. It has become a commodity, even intruding into a TV documentary. Someone tells us something particular about a little animal, but the commentary is accompanied by comical music, as if the animal is to be laughed at.
And in a restaurant, why is the intended mood or style more important than the people wishing to talk?
I was once the regular pianist at a ‘Low Anglican church. It was a relaxed congregation, and I enjoyed playing their grand piano. One Sunday the collection had begun, but I had entered my own mental space. A member signalled to me (hands raised, fingers moving). I had forgotten to play something to cover the sound of coins. Why is that embarrassing?
It is indeed difficult to find stillness and silence.
The above may seem like only negative thinking, but it’s a reminder. We remember to use our inner guidance, to choose how far we are swayed by the speed of life.
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Pondering the subject of space, and stillness, one Sunday, Rev. Kate Whyman, then Minister with Plymouth Unitarians, asked the question:
‘What does it mean to hold space?’
She said it is about our walking alongside a person or a group, on a journey through liminal space.
And ‘liminal’ space, according to Richard Rohr, is a ‘threshold where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown.’
Liminal space can be found in a natural environment, in a space we may call sacred, or it can be found between two people, together in trust.
And Kate Whyman continues:
“We may find ourselves in liminal space at many times in our lives – during illness, bereavement, the breakdown of a relationship, an accident, or trauma. Or a rite of passage: birth, puberty, marriage, moving house, coming out, changing jobs, menopause and so on.
In each case there is a sense of being on a journey from what was known to what is yet unknown. A journey in which we are likely to be changed, transformed even, in some way.”
Some months ago, while on holiday in New Zealand, as often as I could, I would wade in the fringes of the sea. I often recall phrases from T S Eliot’s poem, Little Gidding, and in those moments of quiet walking, I would hear his phrase:
‘the stillness between two waves of the sea.’
We are held between two events: held in No-Time.
So, here in this space, we come together both seeking stillness – away from other influences, yet we also seek human connection.
Leaving home, we move from our own rhythm, our own music, and we find a change of pace. It’s both a slowing down, yet it’s also a prompting towards new movement.
The French have the saying, ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’: to stand back for a better leap forwards. I think this is what we do here.
You may not think of our services as a liminal space, because there is a familiar pattern in our service, but there will be experiences which are new. So, as we enter, this is also a space neither known nor unknown.
So yes – we seek stillness, but as I have said, we end up running away from it. We may allow noise (‘unwanted sound’) to distract us, to dull our senses. It can dislodge our own rhythm.
Yet here, we have other options – here it’s possible to become more ourselves, better enabled to keep a balance – being fully present to ourselves and to each other. It is in those moments we become open to that something else, that greater life which holds all – all and everything.
And as we say in our liturgy, during peace, we may experience ‘the ground of our own being’.
So, though we live in a breathlessly moving world, if the café fills the airwaves with canned music, try elsewhere. We can change the pace when we choose to. And our being here gives us that option.
As Kate Whyman reminds us, “Here, we have entered – whether physically or virtually – we have entered a different quality of time and space…”
And may it be so for us, at this moment.