Seth Haines's Blog, page 9
February 20, 2020
They're Changing Your Brain: The Unintended Consequences of Our Machines
Read my continuing a series on our increasing attachment to smartphones.
I’m working on a longer piece, a piece on the unintended consequences of our relationship with technology. (Look for it in my Newsletter on March 1.) To be clear, I’m not some Skyfall Chicken Little, but research is beginning to catch up with the neurological effects of modernity’s endless tryst with innovation. Particularly, smartphone innovation and the resulting addiction. In an article published by the Daily Mail...
February 19, 2020
Social Media Brings The Fix, But What Else Does it Bring?
Since noticing my screen time crossed the 4 hour-per-day threshold, I’ve been more mindful. Trying to reduce it by no less than an hour-per-day, I’ve set new parameters. How am I doing? Yesterday , I spent 2:16 minutes on my phone, most of which was on account of scheduling meetings via text. I’d say that’s progress.
Yesterday, I popped on to social media for a quick spit, thought I’d see what folks were cursing on any given Tuesday. Before I knew it, I’d thrown 8 minutes of my screen time...
February 18, 2020
Curbing Smartphone Addiction Like a Monk
Last week, I—the guy who wrote an entire book on attachment to the stuff of earth—spent more than 4 hours per day on my cell phone. My cellphone use was on an upward trend, and I decided it had to stop. How would curb I my well-fixed attachment? Through simple, incremental change.
Yesterday, I placed my phone on the far side of the room, next to the wilting plant and a minimalist interior design book I keep in my office for inspiration. It’s a corner of the room I frequent less than I...
February 17, 2020
Put The Phone Down and Read This (Unless You're Reading on Your Phone, In Which CasePut it Down After You Read.)
It’s all explainable.
This is what I tell myself as I stare at the screen time report from the last week. 4 hours and… how many minutes per day? I blink and blink, considering the nearly thirty hours I’ve spent swiping a screen in the last week. All things are justifiable, though, so I consider work, hadn’t I texted clients on an almost constant basis last week? I traveled last week, too, which meant my phone was my primary way of checking and responding to email.
I’ve more justifications than...
February 14, 2020
The Virtual Retreat: A Liturgy of Consistancy
For more of my photography, follow me on Instagram: @sethhaines.
This is not the end of the line. It is the end of the beginning of your personal liturgy formation.
Huh?
Let me take another crack at it.
This is the last day of our virtual retreat, the retreat where we examined forming personal liturgies of silence, joy, and creation. These liturgies beat back the prevailing despair of the day, so commit to them. Be consistent in your personal liturgies, and begin to incorporate them into...
February 13, 2020
The Virtual Retreat (Day 4): Liturgies of Creation
Rituals, routines, personal liturgies—we all have them whether we realize it or not. This week, we’re taking on a Virtual Retreat to create personal, meaningful liturgies. Don’t miss the previous posts.
In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth.
It’s a simple sentence, and when you strip away the prepositional phrase and the direct object, it becomes an even simpler soup.
God made.
God made, and made, and made, the Scriptures say, and when the world was populated by his artistry,...
February 12, 2020
The Virtual Retreat: A Liturgy of Waking to Pleasure and Joy
Welcome to Day 3 of our virtual retreat on forming personal liturgies. If this is your first time this week, start from the beginning and work you’re way forward. We’ll be here when you come back.
As I wrote in The Book of Waking Up, we live in a dark world, one full of pain and despair. In that darkness, it’s tempting to use any old coping mechanism—booze, boobs, a penchant for purchasing—to numb ourselves to the pain. But there’s a different way, a waking way, one I outline in what some...
February 11, 2020
The Virtual Retreat: A Liturgy of Silence
Preface: I’m beginning a short book of prose on the topic of silence. For more information, and to subscribe to the project, visit my latest Substack Post.
Virtual Retreat Day 1: A Liturgy of SilenceI was raised in a busy spirituality. We had a pipe organ and horn section in our Sunday service. There was a youth night with chubby-bunny contests, a raucous band, lights, cameras, always action. Everything was amped or next-level or peak. Never was I led into silence or solitude. Never was I...
February 10, 2020
Developing Personal Liturgies: A Week-long Virtual Retreat
I’ve been punching out words on a near-daily basis and publishing them here. It’s been an active liturgy of creation, one that requires a consistent commitment to a time (5:15 in the morning), place (the gray chair by the fireplace), and an embodied action (putting words to my thoughts). This one act sets the tone of the day. If I publish in the morning, I’ve accomplished something even before I drink my first cup of coffee.
As I wrote last week, our liturgies and rituals are acts of embodied...
February 7, 2020
A Library of Resistance: Books to Help You Beat Despair
This week, I’ve written a great deal on “Deaths of Despair.” They’ve taken America by the throat, and if we let them, they’ll threaten to do us in. As I wrote yesterday, we can resist the creeping despair by developing our own rhythms, rituals, and liturgies of resistance. But if you’ve never created personal rituals and rhythms, if you’ve never participated in spiritual liturgies, where do you start?
The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life, by Me. Sure, this...
