Cole: Gods of distraction
Aspen Relationship Institute
Courtesy photo
“We aren’t made to be still.”
This bold, yet highly debatable declaration — the foundation of Bulleit Frontier Whiskey’s biggest advertising campaign to date — is an example of the countless strategic media ploys set to capture our attention and sell us enticing options for distraction. The contemporary delivery may have evolved over time, but the message speaks of nothing new. We’ve been seeking distraction for centuries.
In 1670, French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.” A century and a half later, another French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville wrote an entire chapter, called “Causes of the Restless Spirit of Americans in the Midst of Their Prosperity,” proposing that before we take the time to enjoy what we have, we zealously move on to the next endeavor, in search of things new and exciting.
Perhaps the Bulleit ad campaign does have a point. It plays on the concept of the restless energy that drove the conquest of the American frontier. But is this a mindset we should be celebrating? The US has now been thoroughly pioneered, but at what cost? The PBS/Ken Burns series “The West” offers some disconcerting perspectives on that question, far from the romanticized glorification we’ve been made to believe in. Are we facing a resurgence of this ethos with the political rumblings over Greenland, Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Panama Canal?
And what does this all say about the intrinsic state of us as human beings? One thing for certain is being still — whether or not we are “made” to be that way — is a challenging exercise and one that perhaps does not come easily to many of us. Because we’ve been encouraged to indulge in the lure of our dopamine reward system and to dream of future possibilities (see previous column “Cole: Overcoming our obsession with more”), we are susceptible to the allure of those vying for our attention and money. Practices like mediation, or simply being present without distraction become confining and unfamiliar and, as a result, feel “unnatural.” Some would strongly argue, however, that resting in the tranquility and peace of the present moment is truly our natural state.
In The New York Times, Chris Hayes wrote about restlessness and boredom saying they aren’t universal human experiences. He said anthropologists found some Indigenous peoples who didn’t even have a word for boredom: “It turns out boredom is a constitutive experience of modernity.”
Furthermore, restlessness is hardly the only discomfort we are seeking distraction from. To compile an inventory of our flaws and inadequacies would be of little value. It would be wiser to simply refer to their aggregate as our collective discontent. Clever, manipulative, and opportunistic entities have figured out strategic ways to take advantage of this discontent and get inside of our heads.
Historically, there have been many different attempts to control our choices and behaviors but nothing has ever matched the power of influence like the current advances in our technology. The smartphone, with its ever-present and omnipotent reign over our thoughts and experiences, has become our Machiavellian North Star, stifling our innate wisdom and intuition. With constant access to the Internet’s endless stream of information — real and fictitious, and social media’s ominous grip on our sense of reality, we are vulnerable pawns to the power of the algorithms that determine what we see and hear. And ultimately believe. This wellspring of false validation, affirmation and instant gratification has permanently changed the course of human behavior. The smartphone has become the supreme god of distraction.
Hayes went on to say, “Our attention is a wildly valuable resource, and some of the world’s most powerful corporations extract it at scale in increasingly sophisticated ways, leaving us feeling like bystanders to our minds … We are painfully aware of the constant claims on our attention — the buzz and zap of the phone and push notifications and texts and little red circles that alert us that there’s more to pay attention to that we haven’t even gotten to yet.”
When talking on a podcast about what people will be like in the next decade with more advanced internet-based technology, ultra-endurance athlete and author Rich Roll said, “It’s going to be a very different type of being, and I think now, more than ever, we’re in a crisis of presence in that we never have to be by ourselves ever again, ever, ever. You have to go out of your way to find a moment of stillness… All of man’s suffering can be boiled down to his inability to spend time alone with himself.”
What can be done? Clearly, we can’t all stop using our phones. But at the very least, we need to redefine the relationships we have with our devices and the information they so willingly offer up. We must find wiser, more mindful ways to engage with technology and then balance those experiences with a pilgrimage back to the “real” world of nature, of art and music and of friendship and love.
We will explore these objectives much more deeply in another couple of weeks and hopefully some of these bleak and fatalistic perspectives will be tempered by hope, resilience and equanimity.
Jeff Cole is a licensed professional counselor, board certified leadership and performance coach, certified meditation instructor, and graduate of Naropa’s Contemplative Psychology program. He can be reached at jmcole28@gmail.com.
