In light of the story a couple of days ago about the Apple employee who left an unreleased version of the iPhone in a bar, Carl Trueman reflects:
Not only does it reveal once again that actually phoning anyone is the least important function of a phone these days (Phone somebody? That’s like so totally yesterday and for you know losers and stuff, as my niece would no doubt tell me); it also highlights once again the vital component of aesthetics for consumerism: how much money is spent in this world on items that do things we don’t really need done but whose acquisition makes us feel cool, better about ourselves, superior to those around us, or inadequate if we don’t possess them?
Above all, the iPhone phenomenon speaks of the need to be continually occupied with texts, tweets and whatever. The obsession with texting and these other phenomena is indicative of the general noise we need to generate to keep ourselves occupied. One of those things which calls to mind Pascal: the measure of true human being is the ability to sit alone in silence in a room. Were we to do that, in our fallen state we would have no choice but to face our own mortality, the ultimate hopeless futility of our existence without God.
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Wow! I feel the need to put this computer down. But the question is…am I willing to it?
So true, one of my most challenging quotes is from John Ortberg’s book on spiritual discipline…
“The great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.”
That a good quote Mark, thanks for sharing.
Also… texting drives me crazy.