I’ve been watching a lot of vloggers on YouTube recently (all for research of course), and have been fascinated by their use of language and how this use of language is beginning to seep into young people’s everyday colloquialisms. For example, it seems to be de rigueur these days to obsessed by things, any things. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard celebrity YouTubers stating how they are obsessed with a certain lipstick, juice drink or phone app etc. I wonder whether they really are obsessed or perhaps it is just something they ‘have been loving this week’?
Anyone who knows me well enough will know exactly what (or should I say who) I seem to be obsessed with. It is no secret that I have become rather preoccupied with a certain well spoken, educated and beautiful British screen and stage actor. I have been known to store photos of said actor on my phone ready to display as soon as someone else appears interested. I have downloaded all the films he has been in up to now, I follow him on Twitter and if I am struggling to sleep (or procrastinating about working), will often find a charming video interview with him on YouTube to watch. That’s ok isn’t it? All a bit of harmless fun surely?
Well, I don’t know.
In some of my previous blog posts, I have written about my desire to be living in the aliveness of the present moment; living my life to the full and discarding the superficial, virtual life online. What am I doing then, wasting my time and energy following someone else’s full life on YouTube and Twitter so fervently when I have my own life to live and experience and work to do? Even worse, and I am embarrassed to say this, but wasting time following this actor’s life online can mutate if I’m not careful, into wasting time in imagining actually meeting this person…dreaming up the conversations we would have about theatre, music or theology. Stupid, I know! Squandering precious ‘now’ time in favour of ridiculous fantasy.
In a recent talk I heard on ‘mindfulness’, I was shocked to learn that people spend at least 46.9% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing, and this mind-wandering (generally about the past and more often the future) typically makes them unhappy. Unhappy? I’m not sure my mind-wandering makes me unhappy, but I do think it can make me feel dissatisfied with the present and with my reality. While some may argue that mind-wandering and fantasising might lead to creative insights, I know that more often it can take me away from the important activities and tasks at hand.
In the Bible, in the book of Romans 12: 2, Paul tells us, ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ Paul follows this up in 2 Corinthians 10: 5, where he says, ‘take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’ These verses encourage us to disarm any thoughts, mind wanderings and fantasies –to notice them, but to let them go. For me this is an active choice, act of will and decision to constantly, purposefully and deliberately let these thoughts go and to consciously focus on the here and now with it’s joys, pains, work and rest.
The ‘fanta-sea’ may appear bright, sweet and pleasurable, but ultimately it is sickly, sticky, fake and rots your teeth. I have got a real life to live and work to do and so I choose to take captive every thought and to swim in the clean, fresh and reviving water of life over a fanta-sea any day.
This Little Light of Mine 