Upon coming onto the ships one of the first things I did was to… can you guess it, in this modern age? Connect to the internet, of course! Among all of our papers we were given, introductory type papers, map of the ship, code of conduct, etc. Amongst these they gave us access to the internet aboard the ship. The password to this internet is based in Ephesians. This was the second time I had heard Ephesians recently.
Before I left for the trip, my father had given me some advice and some things I could study. What he had been studying was that Christ not only was sacrificed for us, but that he currently reigns on the throne. Of the three books of the bible he recommended, Ephesians was one of them. So having had Ephesians both recommended before departing and upon arriving once again made itself known, it made the decision of what to read during my duration easy. Of course I figured it would just be the first book of many to read while away, it soon became clear that this book has an immense amount of truths and secrets hidden inside.
My first step in dissecting Ephesians
My reading habits have suffered greatly over the last few years. I’m not saying it is directly correlated to increased technology and internet speed, but it is certainly a lot easier to spend hours watching pointless content on Youtube or scrolling through pages of Facebook than it is to sit down and read a book. Regardless of how I got to this point, my habits for downtime are suffering. I justify it my mind by considering that I still am learning just as much or getting entertainment one way or another.
I think therein lies the problem for me. Entertainment. The constant need of having a voice in the back of my head that isn’t my own to keep me occupied. Whether it be a podcast of some sort, reading the many statuses that scroll past my eyes (often times flying by faster than I can read them), or even listening to a teaching (while much more stimulating, still is a distraction); it is all just entertainment distraction.
What this means for me is that the focus on everything else is much more difficult. While working if I didn’t have something on in the background it felt like I was wasting my brain space. After all, if all I’m doing is a monotonous task which requires very little effort then I might as well let my mind focus on something else, right? Well, yes, while I do think this can be a good way to use the time I have to do more than just the task at hand; it also takes away from the task at hand. Not only does it hamper my brain activity at work and being able to think through my own thoughts and process through the day or whatever is going on around me; but it also invades my private space when I am home and am finally able to focus on more “important” things. This “bleeding” over of entertainment now affects me as I go into my room and shut my door, shutting out the world. Instead of being able to read, or write, or do something that I feel better about at the end of than at the beginning I put in a pair of headphones and spend a couple hours watching someone else’s content. Now, I would be hypocritical if I didn’t say I still do this. I definitely do. It is something that I would like changed but something that is now so ingrained in me that I feel like I will take some time to adjust my time accordingly.
Another thing I’d like to say is that I don’t think this automatically detracts from such enjoyable experiences such as: watching a movie, playing a game, etc. Especially if these things are done as a social experience. Even alone I think that these things can be a good thing to unwind or to learn something new (even if that new thing is just how a certain season ends on Netflix).
The problem, for me, becomes when that is all that is craved/needed. When your free time is spent solely on the other side of your phone, TV, or computer doing something that is ultimately unfulfilling. It is a quest for something that does not exist: an end. When you are always seeking the next thing to watch, listen to, or even read, it is a quest for entertainment and something to kill your time, not just to enjoy the thing itself. This is why I can be just as content watching through a Youtube channel for 3 hours as I could be doing something more meaningful like reading a good book.
Here’s the thing though, and if it sounds like I’m arguing with myself it is because I am, if you are experiencing entertainment of any form (movie, book, game, etc) then it is all the same in the end. It is to satisfy the same need. The need for more. Once again, however, the problem is when it becomes so habitual and needed that it is all that you do with your free time. The other thing that happens is that after you have finished it, you do not feel more filled/satisfied, but less. This is a great way for me to tell if it is a worthy use of my time or not. I am not trying to condemn this habit of enjoying entertainment at its core.
In fact, I think when there is something worthy of being enjoyed and that has clearly had time and skill put into it, then it is definitely worth enjoying. It is when there is no room for anything else that it forces a bad habit. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. If I go to bed at 9pm and don’t go to sleep until 12am and have nothing to show for it except for the loss of 3 hours, then I have wasted my time. What I have essentially created is a time-traveling device: my mind. My mind can time travel hours into the future. The issue is that my brain is the same as it was before I traveled. So in reality I have lost those hours rather than just propelled myself forward.
So why this sudden rant on the need for constant stimulation? Because after you have become accustomed to it, it becomes that much more difficult to sit back, relax, and focus on just one thing. I had this very thing happen to me when I opened my bible to Ephesians 1:1. I started to read and after a couple sentences, my mind would start drifting off somewhere else. I could be somewhere completely different and yet still be “actively” reading. If someone asked me what I had just read, however, I wouldn’t have a clue. If they asked me what I was thinking about instead of reading, I also wouldn’t have a clue. It has gotten to a point where my mind is in an in-between space where it tries to be equally divided between multiple things and since its equally divided that means that each subject of focus only gets that much attention. The more you add, the less you learn.
As I laid there and tried reading, what would normally take maybe 10 minutes to read took me closer to an hour. The reason is that I really wanted to focus on it and really read what I was reading. I caught my mind drifting off again and again. I would try to snap it back into focus only to loose it again seconds later. It is an adjustment and one that I’m sad I have to try so hard on, especially because reading used to be one of my favorite things to do and now it has become more of a chore. The longer that I practiced the more I was able to focus on the subject at hand. On top of that, Ephesians happens to be jam-packed full of information. That’s when I read something in Ephesians that had never dawned on me before.