We live in the Era of the Unfocused Mind.
Never before has attention – that slender beam of consciousness through which we think and act – been so dispersed, so fragmented, so divided.
I cannot truly communicate with anybody anymore!
When I talk to people, very few look me in the eyes; their gaze continually diverting to the space around them or their mobile screen. When I try to discuss a subject in some depth, they say “it’s not time for serious conversation now” – it never actually is, for they cannot force their mind to focus. When I ask for their opinion about a subject, most people reply laconically, as if wanting to change the subject; they have not yet formed an opinion because they have had “no time to think about it.” When I ask if they have read that book or this article, they always say they haven’t yet; everything will happen sometime in the future, for they live in endless procrastination.
And when I complain, “Why are you fidgety, why can’t you focus for a few minutes?” the most frequent reply is “I’m busy now, I can’t concentrate, I have a million things on my plate.” I have already addressed this “Busyness” in another essay: Everyone today seems preoccupied, rushing from one obligation to another, caught in an unending choreography of tasks. To be busy is no longer a burden but a boast, a public declaration that one’s life has significance….