Sunday Superposition

Edition #4: Reality, going analog

Sunday Superposition is one of the perks for paid subscribers to my newsletter. I discuss a spiritual theme for the week and follow that up with a fun or useful topic. I’m making this edition of Sunday Superposition freely available this month. If you don’t normally have access and you like this feature, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

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Reality

The spiritual theme for this week is reality.

When I feel stressed, I tend to retreat into what makes me feel good: optimistic, camaraderie shows like Star Trek and The Big Bang Theory. Maybe you do this, too. It feels good in the moment—what a soothing release from the pain and monotony of real life—but too much of that is a slow poison.

Movies and TV weren’t a problem for me when I was a kid, and even had a lot to do with inspiring my scientific career. But back then, limits were baked into the system. TV shows tended to drip out just once a week, and the good ones were only on later in the day. With most homes having only one TV, there was usually some negotiation and compromise about what was going to be watched by whom and when. And if you wanted to see a halfway decent movie, you had to go to a video store or the theater, which is why movies were usually only for the weekend.

These days, the only limits are how many channels you can afford and the number of hours there are in a day. Many of us have multiple screens available to us at all times. If I’m not careful, I can end up having shows constantly running in the background and supplementing everything I do in a day. The more stressed or unhappy I’m feeling, the more likely I am to have entertainment running nonstop. That’s not good.

And that’s just the socially acceptable distraction of shows and movies. To use an analogy, if those things are like indulging in beer or wine, then pornography is like crack. There really isn’t an amount that isn’t dangerous. And porn is an even more pernicious problem than TV, given its potency and the way the internet has changed access to it.

As wholesome as books can be, I think this warning applies as much to endless escape in books as it does to screens. When I spent two summers as a research intern at UC-San Diego in 1999 and 2000, there was no TV in the dorms and wi-fi didn’t even exist. The main form of entertainment I had was books, and I had to take care not to read so much that I failed go outside, make friends, and experience the real world.

So, if we’re aware of the slow poison of fantasy, what do we do about it?

For Christians, we turn to our faith.

Christianity is a reality-focused religion. The Bible, rather than distract us from the pain and ennui of life, puts it all front-and-center. The Bible acknowledges that living in a fallen world is often painful and boring. But it doesn’t wallow in that. It tells us what we need to do about it.

Pretty high on the list of what to do is to obey God’s commandments to avoid sin.

When I was an atheist, I was annoyed by the constant theme of sin in Christianity. God just seemed like this cosmic party pooper. But I later came to realize God isn’t a killjoy, but that he tells us to avoid sin in order to bring joy. He knows sin is poison, a slow death to all that we were created to be. He’s given us an amount of time and freedom on Earth, and he’s telling us not to misuse them.

So, do we just not do terrible things and call it good? Well, no.

Most Christians know there’s more to avoiding sin than just avoiding overt acts of evil. I can sit in my house all day watching Star Trek and not become a ruthless drug lord or commit fraud or murder people, but that’s not living a sinless life.

In order to avoid all sin (or at least try; we’ll never be perfect at it), we also need to identify and avoid sins of thought and desire. Even if you think these sins aren’t as bad as overt acts of evil, they’re still a drain on life and they can lead to evil acts. If you’re not sure this is true, consider the way in which David’s desire for Bathesheba led to his committing terrible acts against both her and her husband.

This is why God tells us not to covet. We’re not to desire things that aren’t ours. He thought this was so important that he put it in his top-ten list of commandments. But coveting is a sneaky sin. It can be difficult to distinguish between a healthy desire for something attainable and wanting something you can’t have, or wanting something easily that takes hard work to achieve. That’s why it often leads to other sins.

Here’s a good example of the sneakiness of coveting. When I fall into an unhappiness-TV cycle, I end up yearning for things I don’t have at the moment: the adventures I’m watching, the ideal settings of these shows, the camaraderie of the characters in the shows, the nice resolution to problems at the end, and so on. I might think of TV as a harmless way to fulfill a need, but if I do this too much, I find myself feeling bitter and hopeless about my circumstances instead of doing something about them. Or, if I can’t do anything about my circumstances, taking them to God. The more unhappy I get because I don’t have the things I want, the more I indulge in the fantasy, and the harder I spiral down.

But there’s even more to avoiding sin than avoiding sneaky stuff like coveting. Jesus tells us we need to be active. His commands to us are to love God and love others. We can do that by staying in the Word, praying, worshipping God, actively going out into the world and being God’s emissaries, starting families, helping people, participating within the body of Christ, and being salt and light in our communities.

I don’t know about you, but every time I read Jesus’ commandments, I get charged up to obey him. The problem is, many of us are more likely to be derailed in such efforts, not by hardship and limits on our time, but by ease and free time. We’re led astray by the siren song of endless fantasy.

God created us with a desire for stories, and the Bible is filled with them, so I think it’s reasonable to say that a moderate amount of entertainment can be a positive thing. I know from my own experiences that stories can provide inspiration, teach us things, and foster a wholesome sense of community.

The question is, where do we draw the line?

For me, it comes down to how invested in reality I am. In other words, how well I’m accomplishing the personal and kingdom goals I’ve set for myself. Think of Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). How pleased with my efforts will the master be when he returns? How comfortable will I be at the end, explaining to Jesus that I spent hours consoling myself with Star Trek every day when I could’ve been working towards something substantial?

It also comes down to personal feelings of happiness, which normally I wouldn’t use as a gauge of what’s right and wrong. But in this case, it serves me reasonably well. The more I indulge in escapism, the more unsettled and unhappy I tend to feel over the long term. The more I experience reality, work towards my goals, and deal with stress in a productive way—staying in the Word, praying, worshiping, and spending time with people—the happier and more peaceful I tend to feel.

Keep it real, friends.

Going analog

This guy explains how a little 99-cent notebook is changing his life.

He inspired me to go analog. At least a little.

In the last two weeks, I’ve used paper and notebooks to scribble down thoughts and ideas, and I’ve found that it’s kept me focused. I’ve produced better creative work this way than when I get on my phone or laptop.

Maybe you’re not as distractible as I am, but when I get on a device, the temptation to look at other things usually overcomes whatever good intentions I had to do creative stuff.

So, I’m going to try to maintain the discipline of the notebook and see what it produces long term.