Discernment

It’s a small scene that captures the absurdity of life in the modern world: Chinese tourists pile out of a bus near Melbourne’s Parliament House and take photos of each other, faces beaming, in front of a statue of Adam Lindsay Gordon.

I see this on many mornings walking to work. It’s safe to say the tourists have no idea who Gordon was, because most Melburnians don’t know. He was a kind of tragic hero of 19^th century colonial Australia – a famed horse rider and poet who, having suffered a bad fall in a race and burdened by self-doubt and financial problems, shot himself at the age of 37.

Gordon was one of the early writers of Australian bush ballads, most notably The Sick Stockrider, a melancholy but folksy tribute to the European pioneering spirit. The Chinese tourists with their happy holiday snaps in front of his statue may not care, even if they knew. 

It’s a bizarre scene, but one that’s repeated countless times in different ways around the world and quite instructive. Disconnection is fundamental to the modern condition. Ironically at a time when people are more connected than ever across the world thanks to technology, when information is readily available on anything, deep levels of ignorance abound. 

I think in future our time will be seen as the high water mark of material consumption. Unparalleled wealth is being created with a seemingly endless variety of material goods and choices. If you have the money you can get virtually anything you want, do anything you want, be anything you want. Money has few barriers across the globe.  

Yet as passionately as we have sailed in recent times into the adventure of the material world, the inner world of Spirit has been left far behind. We lack connection with ourselves and our environment, living as tourists in our own lives. Though contemporary technology, including IT and the internet, is helpful in many ways, ingenious and creative, it has negative personal and social effects. Distraction and hyperactivity are two of the most notable. In the absence of a spiritually infused culture with healthy values, addiction to gadgets and the products of the internet is widespread as people fill the inner void. 

Despite this, I can see change. At some point perhaps not so far in the future, as a result of immense human population, scarce resources and climate change, our society will become radically different. There will no longer be endless material abundance and sheer survival will become more important as we are forced to live within environmental limits. By then as a society we may also have moved towards the inner world of meaning, connection and community.

The move towards the Spirit starts with discernment. It’s about engaging quality. Discernment lifts an individual out of the common denominator of the mass and presents him/her with deeper choices about life. What is life about? What really makes me happy? Endless and addictive “conversation” on Facebook, Twitter or other social media does not address these questions; neither does endless consumption of goods, ideas, travel or anything else. When we engage with quality in our lives, we are on the road to creating meaningful connections. Then we can begin to relate to technology or any other aspect of our world with open interest but not with the slavery of the mass. 

The constant barrage of new technology affects social interaction and creates problems that take years to understand, let alone address. There is, for instance, the anxiety and social exclusion of people who don’t participate in or can’t keep up with technology – because of poverty, age, disability or other reasons. There are also the effects that new technology has on the body, either directly through stimulation of the nervous system – contributing to lack of sleep, distraction and anxiety – or indirectly through lack of exercise and obesity. 

Discernment needs to be a central pillar of our culture. Many individuals are already walking its path in various ways, connecting with their deeper selves and their community, but discernment has to become a template for society as a whole. For the tourists who congregate in central Melbourne by the likeness of Adam Lindsay Gordon, it might be something as simple as taking a minute to read the words on the statue; or a moment in the early morning sunshine to imagine who this person might have been, before taking a photo.