I read an Opinion piece in the NY Times (gift link) by David Brooks titled, The Junkification of American Life.
While there is a certain satisfaction in the resonance (“You’re preaching to the choir! Amen!”), reading yet another piece on the overwhelming oppression of our collective dopamine addictions is… uninspiring, to put it gently.
But, just as I was giving up to despair — another lament piece without anything to do about it — I read on to his radical suggestion of a solution. It’s not about wanting it less (“it” being the vice of stimulation, distraction, addiction to entertainment), it’s about wanting something more.
"The problem with our culture today is not too much desire but the miniaturization of desire, settling for these small, short-term hits. Our culture used to be full of institutions that sought to arouse people’s higher desires — the love of God, the love of country, the love of learning, the love of being excellent at a craft. Sermons, teachers, mentors and the whole apparatus of moral formation were there to elongate people’s time horizons and arouse the highest desires."
It's not too much desire, it's the shrinking of desire, settling for less than our ambitious hearts, minds, & souls long for!
Brooks mentions great art as a catalyst to reverse cultural decline: “if people can experience, at school or somewhere else, the emotional impact of a great film, a great novel, a great concert… It’s more desirable than a TikTok.” Art demands something of us, but it (should) produce more in us, too.
While I agree, there is not only cultural consumption (beautiful and impactful as it may be) to inspire, there is creation, too. There is work! The reward for good work is more work.
When I started dignify, I was 28 with two toddlers and no entrepreneurial experience. Having a big vision outsized so much else with which I could have filled my life.
As a teenager, I watched so much TV (renting seasons of DVDs at the video store before streaming and binging were culturally acceptable) that my Mom expressed concern that when I took a gap year, she would find me in the same spot a year later with nothing to show for it but another round of Six Feet Under checked off my list. (No shade on my Mom… this concern was legit).
Working on my own business, though, I don’t think I watched a show for probably 5 years. I didn’t have the time-luxury to do everything, but what was more: I was entertaining myself! I was stimulating my brain with so much learning and problem solving and goals, I didn’t want or need to scroll. I had no desire for distraction, because what was before me was so stimulating in itself.
This line from Fredrik Backman keeps recurring in my mind:
We ate in small restaurants and dreamed big dreams.
Let's dream big dreams and set our sights high!
In the 90’s business book, Built to Last, Jim Collins introduces the idea of a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” (BHAG). Let’s tackle Big Hairy Audacious Goals that captivate our minds, stimulate our imaginations, and earn our time. What could be yours?
I am inspired! Are you?
1 comment
Leave a commentI was immediately reminded of this quote:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses