In a recent edition of Recomendo, a weekly newsletter I receive Sunday morning, the editors pointed me to Erik Davis’ talk How to Navigate the Weirdness. I haven’t watched the whole talk yet, but two summary statements caught my attention.
- “Ground yourself in physical sensations and direct experiences to counterbalance the effects of media saturation and overwhelming information.”
I don’t want to be saturated with media, but it happens. One Google search to learn how to fix a problem with my 3D printer brings up self-help videos on multiple platforms laden with links to other videos and advertisements for related products. It’s like someone dumped a bucket of media on my head. I do this many times a day. I’m overwhelmed with information.
To counter this, I take the dog for a walk, I play my guitar, or I exercise. I do something physical, something that engages my senses, and immerse myself in an experience to escape a virtual world for the real one.
The second statement had a spiritual hue:
- “Deepen your capacity to embrace uncertainty, mystery, and doubt without searching for fact or reason—not everything fits into a fixed narrative.”
There’s a lot I don’t understand about God. Even though I daily learn new things about him, I always have more questions. At the end of the day, I have to trust what he says without much corroborating evidence.
There’s nothing wrong with some uncertainty. That’s what makes games fun. You don’t know what you’ll be dealt or what number you’ll roll. I love reading mysteries. Doubt is good. It protects me from being scammed.
I love facts. As a logical thinker, I gravitate to reason. But some narratives take me in a new direction. Or, as I now like to say, “I didn’t know where I was going until I got there.”
Waite for it... 