How many have robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in the allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you...

What’s the Meaning of My Life? | Ruminations

[& the Blessedness of Staying Far Away from the Attention Economy!]

My first post for the New Year had to wait this long!

And for a purpose at that!

In their immensely popular book titled, Ikigai, the Francesc – Hector duo delve into that good old question of yore –

‘What’s the meaning of my life?’

In fact, a question for which Viktor Frankl, decades ago, gave us an insightful book titled, Man’s Search for Meaning, where he waxes profoundly on the topic –

‘What’s the meaning of my life?’

To Viktor Frankl, the 20th century Viennese psychiatrist,

There’s no doubt that I survive today!

But survival for what...? asks Frankl!

People today have the means to live but no meaning to live for!

When you have no meaning to life for, you live in an existential vacuum, he says!

And in order to help people live a life of meaning and purpose, Frankl founded a school of psychiatry called logotherapy.

“To put the question of the meaning of life in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: Tell me, master, what is the best move in the world?”

There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game…

How true!

The same holds true for human existence, says Frankl, Viktor Frankl.

In the same breath, let’s now take a quick peek into Jenny Odell’s book titled –

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy!

A book that has the power to repurpose, reshape, retune and reorient our lives for the better!

While pondering over the question –

‘What gives meaning to one’s life?’

Jenny Odell reflects on Robert Louis Stevenson, who called busyness a “symptom of deficient vitality.”

Even the great Seneca, in “On the Shortness of Life,” describes the horror of looking back to see that life has slipped between our fingers.

It sounds all too much like someone waking from the stupor of an hour on Facebook, says Jenny!

Look back in memory and consider… how many have robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are dying before your season!

This book then, is a field guide to doing nothing as an act of political resistance to the attention economy, says Jenny!

Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act like dams that capitalize on our natural interest in others and an ageless need for community, hijacking and frustrating our most innate desires, and profiting from them.

Solitude, observation, and simple conviviality should be recognized not only as ends in and of themselves, but inalienable rights belonging to anyone lucky enough to be alive.

The first half of “doing nothing” is about disengaging from the attention economy; the other half is about reengaging with something else – and this is where bioregionalism steps in!

Against the placelessness of an optimized life spent online, I want to argue for a new “placefulness” that yields sensitivity and responsibility to the historical (what happened here) and the ecological (who and what lives, or lived, here), opines Jenny!

As an artist and art educator long interested in how art can teach us new scales and tones of attention, Jenny says - 

I look both to art history and to vision studies to think about the relationship between attention and volition—how we might not only disentangle ourselves from the attention economy but learn to wield attention in a more intentional way. 

Digital distraction, then, according to Jenny Odell, is eating into our precious minutes, our hours, our days and weeks and months and years in this world.

That’s hence, ‘doing nothing’ is tantamount to intentional resistance, and a ‘deprogramming from capitalism’, quips Jenny!

Tiny little acts like birdwatching, caring for the environment, learning to deeply listen by paying attention, or planting trees on a sidewalk or watching pelicans could be a beautiful intentional way of resisting the urge to falling prey to the attention economy!

That’s because, after an hour on social media, the brain gets into a dull and stupefying dread, whereas, an hour outside of the attention economy, helps us tune into finer and finer frequencies that the beautiful world has in store for all of us, - far far away from the madding crowd of the attention economy, says Jenny.

PS: Well yes! personally, I attempted a digital detox myself [from 6 in the evening to 6 in the morning for almost three months], and I found the dividends were so rewarding by all means!

Added, thanks to the likes of Jennyji and Jidduji, I’m not on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or any of those lovely social networking sites, thanks to Jidduji’s philosophies for life that have pervaded me to the core!

Just surviving on the bare essentials – WhatsApp, YouTube and Blogger for now – to communicate with the immediate world around me!

But here’s hoping to quit them also as soon as possible!

And yes! Dear reader! If you’re seriously considering giving a thought to it, do ping me!

You have company!

To be continued…