The 'ah-ha!' moment

I just read Donald Miller’s blog for this morning, which coincided with something I was just thinking (and this isn’t the first time this has happened with him and me.  Maybe we should be friends.  Let’s move to Portland!).  Anyway, he was talking about how people are too distracted to be brilliant anymore.  Here’s the last paragraph of his blog:

No culture in history has been more distracted. If you are wondering why there are no more C.S. Lewis’ in the world, no more stories as good as Tolkien’s, no cathedrals as great as the gothic’s, no music as moving as Pachelbel’s, it may be because the writers of these books, the tellers of these stories, the architects of these buildings and the composers of these symphonies are sitting on their couches watching television. I wonder what’s on tonight.

(The rest of Donald Miller's blog can be found here!)

His words are terrifying, even though I don't think it's as bad as all that.  There are plenty of great artists, but I think that there is more diliberate emphasis on the arts (to "save" them, if you will, for which I'm very thankful!) rather than an expected quality of life to be artistic as may have once been, if that makes any sense.  

I was sort of having a “what are we coming to?” fit of anxiety last night about the economy, about employers, about how we function as a society, and how incredibly fantastic it would be to do a cultural detox.  Maybe get out of town and make new habits.  What I thought was a separate thought from this stuff was that ever since we’ve been sitting and watching Friends every single night—multiple episodes until bedtime, I don’t have nearly as much to write about.  I don’t feel creative, and I feel less like reading my books.  Friends may need to be reduced to a once or twice a week occurrence.

I wonder if going to see a movie counts.  I’ve been itching to see something.  I haven’t seen a movie in the theater in a long time and sometimes it just helps to escape life, when life isn’t the greatest. 

We’ll see.