The truth is that I was and am looking for something\u2014ultimately, Someone. We all are. \u201cThere is a religious feeling,\u201d writes Romano Guardini in The Wisdom of the Psalms, \u201cwhich seems to be very rare, although it really should arise very strongly from the depths of man\u2019s being; that is, the longing for God.\u201d As Augustine\u2019s ever trenchant image of the restlessness of the human heart implies, God \u201chas created us in such a way that our created nature is an urge toward Him.\u201d Yet, as Guardini notes, \u201cthis urge of longing\u201d can be \u201cchoked by life\u2019s commonplaces.\u201d The world \u201creaches out for us, draws our attention, our feelings and desires toward itself. This covers the depths, drowns out the basic voice.\u201d Guardini captures what YouTube and other similar platforms do: They cover the depths. That is, they hijack yearnings, most significantly the primordial human yearning for God. They numb the longing as they proselytize on behalf of the god of distraction. <\/p>\n
I think, therefore, that obsession with various social media platforms and screens both evinces and exacerbates what I would call misplaced eschatology. In this regard, I have in mind Guardini\u2019s revelatory depiction of the human condition in The Word of God: On Faith, Hope, and Charity: \u201cDeep within man there lives the consciousness that something must happen to him, that this present existence is not the real and true one, that it must become new and different and so attain to its proper reality.\u201d Man waits for this \u201cwith a hope that he perhaps does not admit even to himself.\u201d Then comes the crucial piece: \u201cThis hope is often mistaken about its own meaning.\u201d <\/p>\n
When hope is \u201cmistaken about its own meaning,\u201d it is misplaced. So man hopes \u201cthat his next work will be more successful than the last, that he will rise to success and power or will find the person whose love can wholly rouse and fill him.\u201d <\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mindless entertainment is distracting in the worst possible way. It deludes us into thinking we are looking for nothing at all. The hijacking stupefies yearning.https:\/\/t.co\/OlXSkPe4bq<\/a><\/p>\n — First Things (@firstthingsmag) January 17, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n