Mind Less Drivel

For a long time I've thought that time spent alone with one's own thoughts -- even just a few minutes a day -- is vital to being a balanced person who knows themselves well. That's why I think prayer and meditation work for some people: because it gives them time to sort out their own thoughts. This clear, calm thinking, without background music or the like, brings on the feeling of calm refreshment that so many experience.

Prayer doesn't work because their imaginary friend is listening; it works because it's much needed time alone with themselves.

But over the past year, I begun to wonder if that's not exactly why most Americans don't spend quiet time with their own thoughts: because so many people are deeply unhappy with their own lives. But they don't have to realize that, not so long as they can fill their time with all sorts of distractions to keep from pondering their own existence.

That's why so many people learn to turn on the television the minute their feet hit the floor in the morning, or feel they have to have music playing in their ears every second of the day. And why some are so obsessed with the superficiality of American Idol or the lives of so-called celebrities; talking endlessly about the spitefulness of Simon Cowell or the latest humiliations for Britney, Lindsey, or Paris means they don't have to spend time considering the growing gulf between the lives they have and the lives they dreamed of.

(Man, my thoughts are in a dark place today.)