Countering epidemic of distraction

The world is getting progressively smaller. Individual voices are getting louder. Economic creeds have overturned governments and inflamed the world. Philosophers who were once knights in shining armour have run away from the battlefronts, overwhelmed by the sheer monstrosity of the problems that challenge their minds. The poignant drama unfolding in the world and the spate of problems it has brought in its wake are too complex to be comprehended by philosophers who once could summon all the sciences and direct them according to their commands. The comprehension of the paradoxes and perplexities of life now seem to be beyond their ken. Facts have supplanted understanding and knowledge is no longer able to generate wisdom.

We find a very illuminating analysis of our moral and material crisis in Teresa Jordan’s remarkable book, The Year of Living Virtuously. Jordan’s book is an experiment with one’s life which is analysed through the prism of the famous 13 virtues and seven sins enunciated by the redoubtable Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was in his early 20s when he embarked on a “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection,” intending to master the virtues of temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility and the seven deadly sins — lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy, pride — as a springboard for contemplation. He soon gave up on perfection, but continued to believe that these virtues, coupled with a generous heart and a bemused acceptance of human frailty laid the foundation for not only a good life, but also a workable society. Jordan’s book is an invaluable aid to rediscovering ourselves and redefining the contours of our life for achieving moral perfection.

Prompted by her 2010 blog of the same name (Field Notes from Yosemite, 2003, etc.) Jordan collects various postings and essays inspired by Benjamin Franklin. The journal she kept became this collection of beautifully illustrated essays, weaving personal anecdotes with the views of theologians, philosophers, ethicists, evolutionary biologists and a whole range of scholars and scientists within the emerging field of consciousness studies. Though she claims to never have aspired to moral perfection, she was still surprised, as was Benjamin Franklin before her, “to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined.”

Jordan is an artist and author who grew up in a house full of books on an isolated ranch in Wyoming where the love of learning she acquired in the local one-room school carried her to Yale and into a lifetime of inquiry.

She offers a wry and intimate journey into a year in midlife devoted to the challenge of trying to live authentically. Through her explorations, we come to understand the ethics of time, the importance of mindfulness and the profound societal cost of our contemporary epidemic of distraction. She does a marvelous job of juxtaposing and analysing the light and darkness that exist in everyone.

The pages of this book bring together a mixture of analytical thought, mysticism, literature, Eastern philosophies, Western thought, religions, the sciences, psychology and the arts. This book has its own window, which invites you to open your own windows to look through the prism of every human being so that we know, understand and appreciate each other better. It also shows that it is possible to unite within the context of daily life, both, knowledge and action, and the mundane and the sacred, while being in exile and at home. It explores the theme of the integration of daily life with the sacred by explaining that the purpose of sacred law is to forge a connection between the Will of God and everyday life, between the eternal and the temporal realms/

Our sense and value of ourselves as human beings are being remodelled as our attention is devoured by the abstractions of virtual realities, fantasies, video games, violence and vulgarity. Deep down, everyone is concerned about survival, pulling in and getting through life. What is the meaning of human life It seems so abstract. Even if it is answered, what good would it do We don’t have the time.

The book is remarkable in its self-scrutinising psychology and polished craft. The volume moves from generalisation towards the personal, from complaint to decision and ideal. Variety is created by various juxtapositions; there are recurring themes and images

When you begin this book of modern meditations, you will simply remain glued to it, having fallen under the spell of Jordan’s marvelous and many-faceted investigation into our notions of virtue and vice. You can open the book to any chapter — to Lust or Greed or Gluttony, or Balance, Manners, or Moderation — and find wit and quiet wisdom. Jordan’s book provides a salve to tinctured souls wrecked and devoured by the modern moral crisis where our individual identities have been subsumed under the onslaught of the collective forces of materialism. The extraordinary stories and sources Jordan draws on for her meditations, ranging from the personal to the neuro-cognitive, remind us that we can choose where to place our attention and, as we live more mindfully, not only endure the difficult moments but find the tranquility we seek. Through her explorations, we come to understand the ethics of time, the importance of mindfulness and the profound societal cost of our contemporary epidemic of distraction. With philosophical dexterity, Jordan explores, searches and scrutinises commonplace notions of right and wrong.

Jordan successfully incorporates lessons gleaned from formative moments in her own life with those from the biographies of relative unknowns and artists and thinkers, and she delves deep, especially in the more extended essays, into the essence of contrasting modes of being. Jordan’s book is a motivation and invitation to us to further explore the inner contours of our consciousness so that we become better equipped to face the grim realities of modern life.

Written in compelling prose with a huge reservoir of wisdom garnered from the writings of great thinkers, the book recharges our aquifers of spiritualism. It transports us from our mundane concerns to the higher and larger purpose of life .It makes us rethink and reevaluate our life and prompts us to rechart the course ahead .It aims at restoring the music that has ebbed out of our life so that we regain the sweet cadences of bliss.