Month: May 2020

In 2012, Tim Kreider wrote an article in The New York Times entitled, “The ‘Busy’ Trap.” When a friend sent it to me and I read it for the first time, I remember feeling like Kreider was reading my mail. Of the many insights in his article, there were two in particular that resonated with me: One was that most of our busyness is self-imposed. The great majority of what fills our time are obligations that we’ve taken on voluntarily. To a large degree, we are busy by choice. It’s not inevitable. As much as I hate to admit it, I do this to myself. 

The second was his explanation as to why we do this to ourselves. Kreider writes, “They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.” He continues, “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

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By Pastor Brian Davis

In Minneapolis, MN, you can go see and experience what was once the quietest room in the world.(1) It’s called the Orfield Anechoic Room, and it registers at -9 decibels. To put that in perspective, a normal room that we would consider “quiet” registers at around 30 decibels. The room is so quiet that you can actually hear your own organs functioning! 

For many of us who are now in week seven (or is it eight?) of homeschooling and working from home in a packed house, that kind of peace and quiet might sound like a dream. But it’s not. In fact, it pretty quickly turns into a nightmare. The longest that anyone has spent alone in the chamber is 45 minutes. The average person lasts about 30 minutes, and it’s around the 30-minute mark that people begin hallucinating. It’s so quiet that it will literally make you crazy. 

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