Maybe it was Howard Zinn, possibly it was Noam Chomsky, but someone once made the argument that whatever the government or major media wanted you to pay attention to there was always something more important going on somewhere else. Rarely has that felt more true to me than these days. I don’t think I totally believe it, at least not all the time, but it does feel as though there is simply too much information out there and the process of sorting The Fake from The Fact, let alone The Important from The Unimportant, is feeling evermore difficult.
Everywhere I look someone is trying to convince me that their thing is THE BIG THING and either I don’t want to miss it (FOMO making) or I better realize it because…(fear making), or if I get it wrong I will be on the wrong side of history (a form of rage making). Maybe I am just responding to The Algorithmic view of the world that will keep me online. I don’t think so though because I hear from others they are feeling similarly. More importantly, I think something important is going on off screen, so to speak, because more and more of us are struggling to hear our own voices amidst the noise.
As the poet Iain Thomas once wrote,
“Every day the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, ‘This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this!’ And each day, it’s up to you to yank your hand back put it on your heart and say, ‘No. This is what’s important.’”
What’s your heart telling you these days?
Are you willing to say it to yourself?
Is it something you would speak out in front of others about?
What does it look like to be you, truly?
Jesus told multiple stories of people finding a pearl of great price, a truth worth giving up all their hard won and worked for advantages in life. Other religions make similar claims, that there is a deeply soul satisfying truth that to discover makes the rest disappear. Somehow I doubt that truth will be delivered to any of us by The Algorithm.
For me, I find it—to the extent I can claim to have found it—in the quiet morning, in the reading of the bible, the journalling and praying as I get the day started. Each day I read and ask the Holy Spirit to highlight a verse for me so that I can see what is important for me to see that specific day of my life. I think about it says about God, what it says about me, where I might be falling short of God’s desired outcome for me, and how I might improve. This is a gentle process, it’s one I enjoy, and at the same time it is the most important building block of my day.
Maybe if you are struggling to sort out what is real or to remember what’s important amidst all the yelling about what’s important, you will find it helpful to do something like a morning devotion, even if you are not religious, even if you long ago gave up on such ideas, because if you feel the way many people do, then why wouldn’t you try to feel better? If you give it a serious attempt, a few weeks a least, and you don’t find it helping, then move on, but many do find it useful, surprising so, more valuable than whatever else you were going to do with that 15 or 30 minutes.
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