The Trap That Distracts Us From Meaning

Exploring the ways in which the system robs us of purpose and focus and strategies to protect ourselves from such influences.

The more I delve into the study of the soul, the more apparent it becomes that our system - education, social environment, attention-based economy, and scientism - creates a greater divide between our true essence and ourselves.

This essence, what I see as the soul, is an integral part of who we are, yet it is becoming increasingly obscured as a result of the system that is fighting for our attention and is trying to show us its way.

We become more and more isolated from our souls. We live in a system that slowly suffocates us from our spirit, robbin lof of its meaning and the depth of our experience is more and more limited.

The essence of experience is consciousness, giving us the ability to perceive the world in all its richness and experience the deep interconnectedness of all things.

It is the source of our creativity, aliveness, joy, and numinous experiences.

As we contemplate the significance of consciousness, we are compelled to ask:

What is the spiritual significance of colonizing our consciousness with mindless distractions when we could be pursuing greater meaning, healing, and being in service to something greater?

The suggestion seems to be that the current state of society represents a form of warfare against our consciousness.

3 Components of Our Social Structure Divert Our Attention From Meaning

Education: Once, during a school field trip, I visited an institute with an extensive library of various job titles and their respective requirements.

I was maybe 14 years of age.

At that time, I already had a limited perspective on my future, which became even more restricted after an incident that occurred during my visit.

As I was browsing through job descriptions, I came across one related to becoming a musicologist (scientist of music).

Intrigued, I was reading through it when my teacher noticed and made a comment along the lines of "Christian, come on, why don't you search for something more serious?"

Feeling embarrassed, I decided to look at other job categories instead.

Even though I never intended to become a musicologist, my interests led me in that direction. If someone had asked me the right questions, I believe it would have revealed valuable insights that could have aligned the direction of my life more closely with my true desires.

Education is not teaching: How to find meaning in life? How to become a successful entrepreneur? How to build healthy relationships? How to create your own job? How to create a satisfying life? How to collaborate? How to become an independent thinker?

Are these not all questions that are important in life?

And would education not be a great place to learn all of that?

Rather than learning about that, we are taught how to conform to a dysfunctional society and contribute to a system that does not prioritize our emotional and spiritual needs.

The current education is there to create good employees.

But it doesn't give much space for the exploration of one's own desire.

It creates confusion, we believe in all the indoctrinations, but this is not the world we are from, we are in it but not from it.

Our origin is beyond all of that. At the core, we are innocent, untouched and have a purpose that transcends all indoctrinations.

Scientism: Ancient cultures were looking to the sky. Praying to spirit, believing in a mysterious meaning, and where not being stuck in literalism.

Mythologies were the way to understand the world and the psyche. Giving more space to things that we couldn’t put into words.

These days scientism is governing our way of thinking.

We put our faith in science and by this, we reduce our worldview to what is measurable.

If you can’t measure it, it does not exist.

Scientism is the shadow side of science.

It is self-centered (often conducted with an agenda of making more profit) and it is dogmatic. It doesn’t give space for deeper human experiences like spirituality, art, ethics, beauty and love.

Everything that is not based on science is being dismissed, and labeled as esoteric.

In scientism, we believe that science-based inventions are the only way to solve our problems. Furthermore, anything that cannot be explained scientifically is not worth considering or believing in.

It forms a mind of logic. That leads to a narrow path, it doesn't leave any space for a deeper meaning, for our deep longings, for intuitive discernment.

Scientism diverts our attention from the soul.

Attention-based Economy: This might be the most obvious way how we get distracted.

The value of an attention-based company depends on the amount and quality of attention it can get from us. Their objective is to increase our engagement. Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from users to increase success indicators like time spent, clicks, visits etc.

Companies get constantly better in keeping us hooked to our screens.

Luckily, it is easy to get our minds blown by estimates of how much energy and time we waste by mindless scrolling. Just look at your screen time, subtract an estimate of the time used for being productive and you will probably come up with at least 30 days (of waking time) per year that you were browsing your phone without intention.

And unfortunately, it is easier said than done to reduce the time and to shift our focus to more important things.

We are drowning in this kind of distraction, we forget about time and are fed with quick & short dopamine hits that keep us moving our fingers of the screen.

These are the dark pits of distraction.

We are present on the screen and absent in spirit and life. Trying to fill a void, that wants to be filled with meaning, connection and satisfaction.

The economy diverts our attention from the soul.

The Impacts of Losing Touch with the Soul

Through all of that, we lose touch with our potential. It brings a kind of paralysis & emptiness into our life.

An emptiness that could be filled by our potential and a paralysis that could be alchemized into energy.

We can’t look for a solution in our institutions.

The only solution that we are given by scientism, western culture, education and the economy is more work, more money, more medications, more junk food, more stuff and more entertainment.

We have to create our own spirituality and our own meaning in order to not become a victim of this spiritual warfare.

The detachment from significance appears to be a longstanding issue, although I am certain that it is becoming more prevalent in our times.

During the first half of the 20th century, Carl Jung already expressed the following observation:

“Among my patients, from many countries, all of them educated persons, there is a considerable number who came to see me not because they were suffering from a neurosis but because they could find no meaning in their lives or were torturing themselves with questions which neither our philosophy nor our religion could answer.” (Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East)

You most likely have come across individuals who are yearning for a more fulfilling path or maybe you have even expressed this sentiment yourself - the desire to seek something that provides more value, or to lead a life that embodies greater freedom.

They may have expressed a specific interest in becoming an artist, writer, psychologist, or any other potential paths.

How many of them ever pursue the alternative path?

Many fail to see that they have to face their fears and sacrifice their persuasive comfort.

When we don’t do this, we just suppress and as the saying goes, what we resist, persists.

We may become experts in avoiding or numbing these desires, but as a result, they may regress into our unconscious and eventually impact our well-being.

We sleep our life away.

As a consequence, symptoms might appear, fears, nightmares, frustrations, depression, and burnouts, all of which carry the potential meaning of unfulfilled purpose.

Amidst all of the distractions, there is a silver lining - we now have greater opportunities for self-actualization than we have had in the past.

We have an endless stream of examples of people living their purpose and the possibility of working remotely shapes greater flexibility to lead a lifestyle that aligns with our desires and values.

We are fortunate to live in an era where we have access to a wealth of knowledge and teachers, allowing us to attain a high level of proficiency in a particular field without having to pursue formal academic study.

The one quest that we have to embark on is the one of finding solitude in the midst of all the distractions.

When realizing that we don’t want to surrender anymore to the overrated promises and stop diverting our energy into mindless games, then, as Jung said “then he has to find out what his soul says; then he has to go through the solitude of a land that is not created.”

**A Vessel of Solitude**

It doesn’t matter where you locate yourself on the spectrum of introversion and extroversion.
We all need this solitude.
We are faced with a choice:
Do we allow ourselves to become isolated from our soul, or do we choose to isolate ourselves, not from the world per se, but from external ideas that may not serve us?
There is a difference between isolation and solitude. Isolation is cutting us off from external influences, that is part of solitude but it is not solitude.
Solitude is found by being with oneself, disconnected from the echoes of what an endless amount of people have said and all of our memories.

Being in solitude can only be experienced when we are connected with the observing part.

Some people call it the soul, the Self, the daemon or the authentic self.

The part that can’t be hurt, that only knows flow, that doesn't belong to any culture, family, tribe or country. This part is completely innocent like a young child.

We have to retreat, not necessarily for days, weeks or months but rather on a frequent basis, maybe even on a daily basis.

One of my mentors Bobby Klein said that “In retreat you will find purification. You will be able to think more clearly, love more freely, and regain the mantle of self-confidence and those longed-for feelings of inner peace.”

What sparks from this quote is clarity, self-confidence, love and peace. Qualities that arise in silence and when we are anchored in our soul. And this silence is the one that is present before each creation.

In this retreat we are doing the inside work, we discover meaning and purpose and become aware of what harms our focus.

Doing the Inside Work

What does leading a happy and fulfilling life mean to you?

Only you can answer this question. However, we are often conditioned to think and live in a certain way that is believed to bring us happiness and meaning.

Those who choose a different path may be viewed as lunatics, outcasts, or hippies, and this diverts our attention from what truly matters to us.

We may fear being seen as foolish or naive if we choose the less-traveled path. Guess what, everyone experiences that.

It is universal.

We are not experts on the new path, it is unknown.

Every new journey starts with the steps of the beginner, naive questions, uncoordinated actions, clumsy moves and falling and getting up again.

Being seen in this vulnerable phase is not easy.

There are many voices that may raise doubts in our minds, such as those of our parents, society, friends, teacher our other authorities. They all become a part of us, and some of them will be louder than others.

In solitude, we learn to differentiate between the voices of doubt, our complexes, and our potential, all of which have a place at the table of our inner world.

Ultimately, it is up to us to navigate these different voices and decide which ones to follow.
To do this inner work it is helpful to turn towards practices like journaling, meditation, parts work (check the book “No Bad Parts” by Richard Schwartz) or look for a therapist or coach that supports you in dismantling the different voices.
By understanding the protagonists of our inner world, we are able to listen to the right ones (without suppressing other voices) and become aware of voices that stem from traumata’s.
We getting more sensitive to the frequency of the voices.
The awareness of our inner world makes not only discernment easier but you will also gain a new depth of the relationship with ourselves, the world and people.

Divert Your Focus to Meaning

Only by looking beyond our conditionings, we can see what we actually feel drawn towards.

We have to sense it.

Only after achieving clarity about what is truly meaningful to us, can we focus on creating a life that is grounded in a deeper purpose.

Without this clarity, there is little incentive to change our ways.

If we settle for a life that fails to fulfill us, are content with buying things that provide only fleeting satisfaction, are stuck in a job that causes frustration, and indulge in aimless distractions, breaking free from this cycle may prove difficult.

As this kind of lifestyle perpetuates the numbing effects of the attention-driven economy and masks the emptiness that we might feel if we relinquish from distractive actions.

We need a form of knowledge of the meaning and purpose of our life.

We don’t need to know exactly what the purpose is, and we don’t need to put it into words but we need a sense or feeling of it.

What are you called to? What values, qualities and skills you must embody?

These are not easy questions, but they call us out of the trivial and invite us to look for the bigger picture.

The answers will enlighten us and make us feel more alive because we suddenly realize that we are serving life and not our seductive technologies, hedonism, numbing activities or self-absorption.

Your attention and time are the greatest resources. And a big part of it might flow into a direction that you don’t believe in.

Stop the flow and redirect the energy towards your vision, towards opportunities of enlarging your life and experience.

Redirection of energy calls for discipline and that requires that you love yourself and the meaning of your life more than your excuses.

Guard Your Energy

If you are just a bit like me probably you had a day passing and at the end of the day you look at your screen time and you realize that you have spent about 6 hours on your phone. That is valuable time.

I struggle to justify the value of this behavior. Not only does it fail to leave me feeling good, but it also leaves me feeling more empty and hollow. Although it may offer a brief relaxation, the aftermath of this mindless phone use is always dissatisfying.

Luckily that doesn’t happen anymore to that extent.

On certain days, I wake up feeling a little out of sorts, perhaps groggy or anxious, and I'm aware that I'm more prone to being distracted.

I know then what I have to do.

I know how I have to go into offense and guard my energy against the numerous potential distractions.

With practice, I've become more attuned to recognizing this state of mind, and meditation has played a significant role in helping me achieve this awareness.

It enables me to ask what I can do to sharpen my focus and what I can do to protect my energy from leaking.

This requires discipline and knowing the tools that help you.

On these days, I might start it with a good workout, a walk in silence or a long meditation.

These are just a few tools that I embrace, you might have your own and if not, it is about time to discover them.

As conduits for energy, we possess the ability to materialize it into tangible forms.

Each day, we are bestowed with fresh reserves of energy and have the ability to guide its flow. However, if we give ourselves to aimless browsing, we risk wasting it.

We need the awareness, the tools and the discipline around these distractions so that our energy is not feeding the machinery and instead can flow into our vision.

To sum up, the system that we grow up in influences our lives and include a diversity of distractions that draws us away from our true essence and the deeper meaning of our lives. Consciousness is being limited and we become more and more disconnected from our souls.

I believe that it is important for individuals to recognize the ways in which the system robs them of their purpose and focus, and to actively seek ways to protect themselves from these influences. By doing so, individuals can tap into their true desires, explore their spirituality, and create a more satisfying and fulfilling life.