Distraction: Source or Symptom?

Distraction: Source or Symptom?

Previously I wrote an article entitled ‘Listening in a Distracting World’.
In this article I suggested that today, people have shorter attention spans and are listening less due specifically to Distraction as the source of the issue.

In my recent audiobook,
I felt this idea flipped on its head when a question was asked:
What if Distraction is a symptom, and not the source of the issue?

Eerily in the last three audiobook that I have listened to one topic has persisted.
This is the idea of ‘Bad Faith’, and the importance of Good Faith.

See, ‘Bad Faith’ means that you are either putting the entire power of control onto another, or reserving it for yourself. If someone is acting in bad faith, they may feel that the outcome is fully in their power.
Just as someone acting in bad faith may feel that someone else is fully to blame.

When we interact, that interaction is with another, and a conversation is more akin to a session of improvisation or tossing clay than anything else. Let me explain, in improv the idea is to accept where you find yourself in the story, and to build upon what your partners have set up.
Similarly so, you could consider a conversation like a piece of clay.
Unformed, this clay has the potential to become anything.
With Good Faith, we accept the clay or topic as it is presented to us.
We nurture what is forming, shape it a bit, and then toss it back to our partner.

If a participant has an advanced desire of what the comedy sketch, or clay should become and will not let it go… well, they are displaying bad faith. Sure we may have ideas of what we may desire the clay to become; however, when showing good faith, we accept and respect the contributions of others.
We suspend our own desire, and instead build towards mutual desire.

Perhaps Distraction is just the easy out.
A quick way to forget?
Or perhaps, the willingness to be distracted is a symptom of something else.
See Good Faith, can be challenging.
It means letting go of the clay,
and letting go of what you so want it to become.
It means putting your faith in another, respecting their contributions,
and being ok with what ever the clay becomes.

This gets back to self-control.
Managing ones fears, and desires.
As well as Suspending the self, for another.

I think it may be easy to objectify a problem, and say that this is because of that.
such as saying, ‘Distraction is the problem in society, not me’.
However, again putting the onus of responsibility solely on one thing is also a form of bad faith.

Sure this world has allowed for more distractions.
But, if I am distracted, it is because I allowed myself to be lulled by it.
Good Faith means managing emotions, and believing.
Distraction is a quick out and into another emotion for a moment.

Distraction is not the source.
When one allows themselves to be easily distracted they are escaping.
While an escape may be ok, getting back to the challenge is important.
It communicates that we care, and that a distraction can never be enough for us to forget.

If distraction is temptation then
returning attention and caring is the cure.