Living with Effort

How do we live authentically and with integrity in a world in which we struggle to maintain clarity of our own thoughts amidst the milieu of encroaching demands and enticements? Can we ever escape the rat race, even long enough to look with an outside perspective on the state of our own life, let alone the lifestyle and trends of society and the global world?

Adbusters thinks we can. Adbusters offers a refreshing reminder that not everyone has given up on swimming upstream, as long as upstream is the necessary direction to swim to escape drowning. Along with hopeful websites like DroppingKnowledge.org we can be distracted from the incessant external chatter. For a brief moment, we might escape the barrage of truth-defining advertisements whose bottom line rests in the success of capitalism. For a second, we can forget about truth-shaping journalism run by multinational corporations re-framing and re-defining truth and Right and Wrong with their powerful wand of censored news instead of portraying the truth that already exists in the world, defined by the people on the ground. At least, alternatives like adbusters and droppingknowledge help.

Furthermore, a conscious choice to live with effort, defined by a conscientious outlook and compassionate actions, must begin to reinstate its home within our minds and hearts and whole bodies. We can choose to slow down the pace of life … the process will likely be disturbing and painful and perseverance will become a much grander virtue, but it can be done. We can choose to engage in relationships which occur face-to-face and which do not always leave us with a satisfied stomach or confident posture. We can choose to spend our evenings sitting out in the natural air without portable devices or books to distract our eyes and ears from sensing and drawing in the beauty, stories, and knowledge that the earth holds dear. Living with effort can be done, but my question remains: is it a utopian ideal? Can living with effort bring the reality of Shalom and the Kingdom of God any closer? Will living with effort stop injustices from occurring? Can living with effort even be a step in the right direction, or is it a soft-heart attempt to find hope in a disillusioning world?

Disclaimer

*My reference to adbusters occurs because I just read their july/august issue and realized the important niche they could play in reframing perspectives and outlooks in life, and thus potentially being a small drop of hope. Referencing adbusters reminded me of droppingknowledge, which led to its mention. These references are not meant to be the unparalleled examples of what I write about, but merely the most recent examples I have encountered.