Last week, I wrote that the future of the world depends in no small part upon how we – the normal, everyday people who populate this globe, practice our capacity for presence and focus. We live in uncertain times, but we are not helpless. As I argued in my previous post, we begin changing the world by putting our own houses in order.
Our world is suffocated by addicting, irrelevant, glittering images: a perpetual cascade of memes, buzzfeed articles, emails, tweets, and status updates from friends. This is, as Cal Newport describes it in his book Deep Work, The Shallows.
A reader of mine recently tweeted at me asking how, especially when in the midst of deppression, one can do little things to reach larger goals. I thought his question was a good one, particularly because I’ve spent the past 4 years trying to discover an answer. I’ve already written a post about my tools to stave off depression, and this post can be read as a sequel to that one.
Continue reading “Three Concepts I Wish I Understood in College”
Stephen Bradford Long 