FIND YOUR OWN ROAD

Another mass shooting today at Santa Fe High School in Texas. Ten dead. Teenage male shooter. The deranged go unnoticed, untreated. This is never part of the outrage that follows the inevitable carnage that results. The focus is on guns. Guns don't kill people. Desperate crazy people kill people. 

The distraction which is embraced by many all day on computers, big and small, is a poison. The advertisement-supported media are invested in bombarding us all with the most horrific and distracting events in the world. They exploit a human fascination with disaster, fueled by fear. It is hard-wired. Easy to exploit. 

It is difficult to work against this instinctual fear. Eliminating it is impossible and would not be in anyone's interest. That fear is a refined development of eons of human evolution. However, we all have choices in what we expose our senses to, day by day, hour by hour. 

The impediment to personal concentration and peace caused by life's distractions is not new by any means. The intensity has been magnified by digital communication. But those who wished to avoid distraction in favor of concentration for personal peace and psychological advancement in past ages did this through several methods. 

The hermitage was an ancient refuge in Nature separated from humankind for the purpose of meditation and reflection on life's meaning. Caves on mountainsides, huts in deep forests, islands off shore. Physical isolation from humankind's social travails led to deep thought, refreshed perspective and even some wisdom. The Biblical solitary desert wanderings of Christ and Moses are examples. 

The gradual organization of human society into massive religious and cultural identities gave rise to group vehicles for detachment from the daily worries and fears of human existence in predominantly rural societies. Monastic life was developed across the most populated areas of the planet by various religious groups. Whether based in self-denial or communal productivity, these communities shared the basic idea of quiet meditation and/or reflection to achieve a closeness to some human ideal in relation to cosmos and society.  

The virtual over-stimulation of the digital age is accompanied by a growing physical isolation. This can facilitate a descent into madness. But it also can provide the atmosphere for personal meditation and psychological development. By turning from junk media about narcissistic rants, disasters and hollow politics all over the globe, a modern individual can access gigantic libraries of information about how to focus a life for betterment of oneself and society. The same physically isolated individual can also take the independent time to meditate and try various other forms of self-development, which can in turn lead to seeking sustaining intellectual community. 

It is easier than it has ever been to learn. And it may be harder than it has ever been to choose learning over indoctrination. The process of finding your own road through learning begins with the simple decision to travel that initially lonesome road despite the pull of commercial-media distraction. Commercial media wishes you to remain one impersonal digit in a predictable consumer group. The extent to which you surrender to that will determine the shallowness or depth of your individual human experience.