Gaze Out the Nearest Window
Sometimes we must just STOP. Take the time to stand, look, and listen. Take deep breaths. Gaze at your life. You might be surprised at what you see.
In his recent essay at The Free Press, Luke Burgis placed a very sensitive “stethoscope” to the human heart. COVID awakened Burgis (and others) to our loss of the ability to just dwell, to soak up the sights and sounds that surround us.
Thankfully, he kept good notes. For example, consider his view of how digital scrolling
…induces a kind of blackout. Not in the way alcohol causes one, but in the sense that time disappears without anything worth remembering. There are days I can barely recall—not because they were traumatic, but because they were simply unmemorable. A digital fog. Hours passed without touching anything real. No texture. No depth. Just input.
Burgis also shares his thoughts on how we might rise above that.
A future where humans can flourish won’t be built by those who move fastest, but by those who remember how to stand still. Until we recover the courage to choose stillness when necessary, when the world is moving frantically around us, we will mistake velocity for vision. We will keep accelerating—not toward the good, but simply away from the ground.
Right now, I encourage you to find the nearest window and, if you haven’t already, learn how to stand and stare. Feel yourself slow down. After that, you can work boldly in the knowledge you’ve actually seen and understand the world you’re working to improve.
I think you see Burgis is onto something. Something grand and essential to finding the right aperture for viewing our life in its context. To read the whole thing, just click here.