Why the Endless Evening Doom-Scroll After Labor Is No True Rest—And What Manner of Quiet Truly Restores the Soul
(Wo)Men return from their day's toil, sink into a chair, and take up the small bright rectangle widget emitting blue-light - that now usurades the place once held by hearth or book or starlit sky.
They pass from one fleeting image to the next, one voice to another, as if this were repose. Yet when the hand lays the thing aside, the spirit is not eased but wearied further, the mind more restless than before it began.
I say to you plainly: this is no rest. It is a new form of busyness, a feverish foraging in a field without bounds. The ancients knew the soul requires simplicity, silence, and the steady pulse of what is predictable and low in surprise. But in this age men chase novelty as though it were sustenance, and wonder why they starve.
Consider how the mind is made. In former times, when a hunter scanned the underbrush or a gatherer sought berries, each uncertain glimpse promised meat or poison, life or peril. A small tremor in the leaves might mean reward or danger; thus the blood stirred, the eye sharpened, a quiet exhilaration kept the frame alert.
So too does this glowing screen operate upon us. Each swipe might bring laughter, outrage, some trifling wonder or fresh alarm. The soul, ancient in its wiring, answers as to the rustle in the brake: perhaps this next leaf conceals the berry. And so the vital fluid—call it what modern men will, some quickening spark—rises again and again. It is the selfsame mechanism that once preserved the race, now turned to keep us chained to petty uncertainties long after the sun has set.
Yet true repose demands the opposite. Let the morrow's event be known, the song familiar, the path oft trodden. Then the mind, no longer straining after what may come, turns inward. It wanders its own fields, reflects upon the day, mends what was torn in the press of affairs. In such low expectation the deeper faculties breathe freely, as the pond after storm grows calm and mirrors the heavens.
I have heard men speak of music long known, a repeated strain without surprise, as one path to this quiet. Or the simple act of walking abroad after labor, letting the limbs move while the thoughts drift like clouds unmoored. Some speak of lying awhile in darkness, eyes closed for a brief span—no deeper sleep required—till the day's gathered heat of the brain dissipates, as frost yields to morning sun.
These are honest counsels. They cost nothing, demand no new machine, and return the man to himself.
Too many, in this hurried century, suffer their evenings to be stolen by the infinite parade of trifles. They call it unwinding; I call it winding tighter still. The telegraph, the daily sheet, the ceaseless rumor—all these were decried in my time as hindrances to deliberate living.
How much more this present invention, which brings the whole clamor of the globe to the palm of the hand, yet delivers no wisdom, only haste.If you would live deliberately, guard the hours after toil as jealously as the hermit guards his cell.
Begin with small disciplines: leave the device behind; step forth under the evening sky; sit in stillness till the mind settles like sediment in a jar. Or walk, as I was wont to do, till the body's motion quiets the mind's clamor.
Let the important labors of the heart—reading what endures, conversing with those near, or simply beholding the stars—claim their place before fatigue dulls the will.
The soul is no machine to be wound by novelty. It asks for predictability, for low stakes, for the chance to cease its eternal vigilance. Give it that, and it will repay you with clarity sharper than any dawn.
Take up the knife and the board; make once more the meal whose steps are written in your hands. The fingers move with sure habit—chop, stir, season—while the higher part of the mind, that restless overseer called the prefrontal cortex in these modern days, need not labor. It rests.
What simple rite, what quiet habit, has most restored you after the day's clamor? The work is honest and lowly, yet it occupies the body just enough to quiet the brain's perpetual fretting after newness.Speak it plainly, as one neighbor to another. I would hear what still avails in these loud times.
They pass from one fleeting image to the next, one voice to another, as if this were repose. Yet when the hand lays the thing aside, the spirit is not eased but wearied further, the mind more restless than before it began.
I say to you plainly: this is no rest. It is a new form of busyness, a feverish foraging in a field without bounds. The ancients knew the soul requires simplicity, silence, and the steady pulse of what is predictable and low in surprise. But in this age men chase novelty as though it were sustenance, and wonder why they starve.
Consider how the mind is made. In former times, when a hunter scanned the underbrush or a gatherer sought berries, each uncertain glimpse promised meat or poison, life or peril. A small tremor in the leaves might mean reward or danger; thus the blood stirred, the eye sharpened, a quiet exhilaration kept the frame alert.
So too does this glowing screen operate upon us. Each swipe might bring laughter, outrage, some trifling wonder or fresh alarm. The soul, ancient in its wiring, answers as to the rustle in the brake: perhaps this next leaf conceals the berry. And so the vital fluid—call it what modern men will, some quickening spark—rises again and again. It is the selfsame mechanism that once preserved the race, now turned to keep us chained to petty uncertainties long after the sun has set.
Yet true repose demands the opposite. Let the morrow's event be known, the song familiar, the path oft trodden. Then the mind, no longer straining after what may come, turns inward. It wanders its own fields, reflects upon the day, mends what was torn in the press of affairs. In such low expectation the deeper faculties breathe freely, as the pond after storm grows calm and mirrors the heavens.
I have heard men speak of music long known, a repeated strain without surprise, as one path to this quiet. Or the simple act of walking abroad after labor, letting the limbs move while the thoughts drift like clouds unmoored. Some speak of lying awhile in darkness, eyes closed for a brief span—no deeper sleep required—till the day's gathered heat of the brain dissipates, as frost yields to morning sun.
These are honest counsels. They cost nothing, demand no new machine, and return the man to himself.
Too many, in this hurried century, suffer their evenings to be stolen by the infinite parade of trifles. They call it unwinding; I call it winding tighter still. The telegraph, the daily sheet, the ceaseless rumor—all these were decried in my time as hindrances to deliberate living.
How much more this present invention, which brings the whole clamor of the globe to the palm of the hand, yet delivers no wisdom, only haste.If you would live deliberately, guard the hours after toil as jealously as the hermit guards his cell.
Begin with small disciplines: leave the device behind; step forth under the evening sky; sit in stillness till the mind settles like sediment in a jar. Or walk, as I was wont to do, till the body's motion quiets the mind's clamor.
Let the important labors of the heart—reading what endures, conversing with those near, or simply beholding the stars—claim their place before fatigue dulls the will.
The soul is no machine to be wound by novelty. It asks for predictability, for low stakes, for the chance to cease its eternal vigilance. Give it that, and it will repay you with clarity sharper than any dawn.
Take up the knife and the board; make once more the meal whose steps are written in your hands. The fingers move with sure habit—chop, stir, season—while the higher part of the mind, that restless overseer called the prefrontal cortex in these modern days, need not labor. It rests.
What simple rite, what quiet habit, has most restored you after the day's clamor? The work is honest and lowly, yet it occupies the body just enough to quiet the brain's perpetual fretting after newness.Speak it plainly, as one neighbor to another. I would hear what still avails in these loud times.