I have had to do something to cleanse my brain of thinking about American politics.
What a time it’s been for political news junkies. The presidential contest had a dramatic narrative arc that could almost have been written for television. The Democrats were confident in victory as Election Day dawned, buoyed by polling that showed Joe Biden well ahead of President Trump. Republican hopes grew as the first exit polls emerged, based partly on a stronger-than-expected turnout from with minority voters. However, they were eroded and finally dashed by subsequent results from the “swing states”, which seem to have handed victory to Mr Biden. We witnessed President Trump’s bizarre press conference, conducted in his usual rambling style, claiming that there had been widespread electoral malpractice. “We were winning in all the key locations by a lot, actually”, he stated. “And then our number started miraculously getting whittled away in secret.”
I was preoccupied not only with those events, but with the reactions to those events by other social media users, the majority of whom are strangers to me. This did not feel like a normal or healthy position in.
I was glued to it all, endlessly updating my Twitter feed for the latest news, despite my best intentions to keep it all in perspective. So last Sunday, I decided to avoid social media and the news entirely. Instead, I spent a considerable part of the day building a bookcase and raking six bin bags of fallen leaves from our back lawn. Doing these physical tasks was not only extremely satisfying, but had a feeling of authenticity. This sense was heightened because it came after several days in which my mind was excessively preoccupied with events on another continent, over which I had no control, and which may not affect my own life in any significant way. Indeed, I was preoccupied not only with those events, but with the reactions to those events by other social media users, the majority of whom are strangers to me. This did not feel like a normal or healthy position in which to be and in part explains my desire to step away from the virtual world and do something real.
The sense of relief and freedom that accompanies stepping away from that screen is considerable.
I realise that the “office worker who thinks he has achieved enlightenment through doing something with his hands for once” is one of the oldest clichés in the book. It’s been explored many times, for example in the fascinating Shop Class as Soulcraft by the American academic Matthew Crawford, a political scientist who taught himself to repair motorbikes as a way of reconnecting with the physical world (“shop class” is an Americanism for design and technology).
But clichés become clichés for a reason. For me, a bureaucrat who spends his entire working life in front of a computer screen, the sense of relief and freedom that accompanies stepping away from that screen is considerable. In true early middle-aged husband style, I have carved out a little kingdom for myself in our garage, and while in there I have set myself a strict No-Phone rule. I relish the liberation of concentrating on a particular task in a quiet cul-de-sac of an English village, unencumbered by the knowledge of what a total stranger sitting at their laptop in New York or Sydney is thinking about President Trump or the Pope or the new Polish abortion law. I listen to CDs from start to finish, allowing the developing themes of a whole symphony or an entire Mass gradually unfold, rather than skipping from track to track in a playlist designed to deliver hits of instant enjoyment.
Having a day of “analogue living” was a wonderful tonic, and I think I will try it more often. I do need to step away from the demands and bad habits of a hyperconnected world of rolling news, instant gratification and constant distraction. The question, I suppose, is how to achieve this. Part of the answer lies in prayer, of course. Cardinal Robert Sarah’s The Power Of Silence is a brilliant meditation on how we can nurture our inner life in a noisy world, by setting aside a quiet place and uninterrupted time for contemplation and prayer. This, he says, is how the ordinary Catholic believer can take time out from their day to obey the instruction in Psalm: “Be still and know that I am God”.
Niall Gooch is a regular Chapter House columnist. He also writes for UnHerd.
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