With everything, there’s a line.

On one side of the line is a greater chance to give more, enjoy more, realize more. On the other side, there’s less of a chance.

And with each line, there’s a choice. You want to cross the line or you don’t. You want the better chance at meaningful – opportunity – impact – or you settle with the lesser chance.

Your choice.

It seems simple but then there’ll be those times… (read more)

(photo: crossing the line in the Outer Banks of North Carolina)

Weekly, I’m amazed by technology and our ability to connect instantaneously wherever we are. But I wonder if that’s what’s really happening – the connecting.

There’s a wonderful (and frightening) book called The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis). It’s a compilation of letters from one devil to another – a mentoring devil to a junior devil. It’s dizzying what it’ll do to your thinking because everything seems to be in reverse. If you want to push your brain, it’s worth your time.

So… What if it were true? If there was an evil force in the world, what would be its primary work?

It would attack love, wouldn’t it? And love is care. And wouldn’t one of the most evil ways to do that be to help us slip into a twilight state of sleep and indifference but at the same time make us feel as though we’re active and connecting with one another?

“Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it ‘real life’ and don’t let him ask what he means by ‘real’.”

C.S. Lewis (1942)
from The Screwtape Letters

Okay, my band of evilness, here’s an idea…

Let’s make it so easy for people to connect that they focus on the quantity of connections rather than the quality of those connections… Devolve the meaning of friend. Devolution. Mmmmm.

Let’s give them some tools that allow them to find each other wherever they may be and let’s encourage them to be obsessed with those tools. So efficient. Wait… And then maybe they can keep track of those friends… In front of each other… Yes, a contest of sorts. So proud.

Let’s help them push human interaction to their fingers rather than their faces… Oh, so nice… Quicker less thoughtful communication eroding their ability to communicate at all, perhaps? Could it be that they may even shy away from talking completely?

Yes quicker, less thoughtful, less meaningful.

All along, they’ll feel like they’re making more connections but in reality, they’ll be growing apart… Becoming less able to connect in reality. Conversations will become acronyms. Discussions will become monologues and homologues. Listening, reflection, and thought… Pffft. Rush. Rush. Rush. 

Oh… To have them care more about telling their story than living their story… How wonderfully terrible that would be.

(Let’s be careful.)

Cells, berries, and ithings get too much attention.

Five days ago, I decided to try an experiment. It’s part of my real world immersion program.

I’m doing my best to make it so no one knows I have a cell phone. No checking for emails or messages when people are around me. No answering a vibrating phone (a ringtone? please) if I’m in a face-to-face conversation with another human being (ruuuude man).

My thinking here is this’ll make me more available to the people in front of me and the life around me and also help me focus more. I’m guessing it’ll also help me improve my real world communication skills (listening is a part of communicating) and consequently help me help others better.

The only downside I can think of is not being instantly available for a real emergency (but this is possible several times throughout the day anyway).

So far, it feels good. (update after 2 months below)

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(It’s scary that people text and read while they drive (grown-ups are especially surprising given that we’re not supposed to be that stupid)… make-up application too (yeah, I saw you taking that turn putting on your mascara in your rearview). I’m sure it’ll slow down as each of us personally know more and more people who have accidents (severe or not) but we’ll probably have to stick our finger in the socket a few times before we get disciplined.

If you’re up for a frightening (and very disturbing) awareness video on the topic (I’ve shared it with my 15-year-old who is with driving friends now, but I’m pretty hardcore as you likely know if you read my stuff), here’s 4 minutes. Do not watch it if frightening and disturbing are not your things. I’m serious. It’s a British PSA.)

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Update: Nothing but great things to say about the device diet. In fact, I downgraded to a regular phone a couple weeks after this post. The phone still has great keyboard features, etc. but it’s less of a distraction now (and I save $500 a year in usage fees).

I did violate the diet a couple weeks ago though and got a lesson — classic bad dad moment. I was looking up something on the phone at my son’s basketball game and missed his one basket of the game. I’m pretty confident I won’t pull that again.

If no cell phone sounds cwazy (so crazy, I spell it cwazy), here’s a Bloomberg/ Businessweek piece that might play to your ego and encourage more focus.