A focused life…

I’m reading an excellent book right now called The Call by Os Guinness. It’s given me great reason for reflection. Observe:

Stone, it is said, was the medium for the ancients and steel for the early moderns; ours is plastic and the name of the game is recycling. “One-and-only” and “forever” are obsolete, and “needing more space” is our most readily given excuse. In our fragmented lives the one thing necessary is to “keep our options open.” The art of “identity building” is more a matter of fluidity than fixture. And since the rules of the game change as fast as the games themselves, we are taught to avoid above all being “stuck” with commitments that might “mortgage” the freedom of tomorrow.
p.176

Whoa! I’ve become very aware of how easy it is to get lost or dilluted in all the options our culture provides. Choice is no longer a rich blessing…it is now considered a right that must always be maintained. Here’s another quote that sums up the problem nicely…

“To achieve anything today, an artist has to develop a conscious scrictness in respect of time which in former ages might have seemed neurotic and selfish, for he must never forget that he is living in a state of seige.”
- W.H. Auden, poet

A while ago I wrote a blog entry on how I’ve begun exploring discipline as the only way to experience freedom (”Discipline, The Art of Freedom”). Whereas before I would be mortified at the thought of setting a fixed bedtime, or scheduling in a two hour chunk of time that I should go off by myself to practice creativity. Why should I be bound to such rules? Because there are too many options! As Auden, quoted above, points out it may be better to live in a way that relentlessly guards what God has given me from being sapped of its strength and zeal by pointless distractions.
On a practical note, one of my biggest wastes of time…surfing the internet. I’m addicted to information. My favorite places to visit? http://www.slashdot.org, http://www.wikipedia.org, http://www.cnn.com, http://www.versiontracker.com, even my friends blogs! I can’t even begin to tell you how much time I lose just by browsing for information!

Of course learning new things isn’t wrong. My personality is a type of “mental sponge” anyway. I enjoy it. The world wide web was one of the coolest inventions in my mind. But do I have to let it control me? If given the option to sit and write a new song, or practice guitar (or write to you my blog audience…) I usually choose to surf. This is just an example of something that would have more impact on my life if it were focused. If I set limits on how much time is spent, then I could be free for other things.

Now, where’s my guitar…