Social Poverty

Hello. This is Ditto the Bookworm.

For a moment today, might we gently set aside the small screen we hold so tightly, and take time to simply catch our breath?

We live amidst countless connections.
The moment we open our eyes in the morning, we check the daily lives of others; late into the night, we press 'like' on someone’s thoughts.

Yet, paradoxically, within such abounding connection, we sometimes feel an inexplicable hunger.
A feeling of poverty in the heart...
Perhaps this is the 'social poverty' the digital age casts upon us.

In the Eastern classic, Laozi’s *Tao Te Ching*, Classic of the Way and its Virtue, we find these passages:
"He who stands on tiptoe is not steady. He who strides cannot maintain the pace."
"He who shows himself is not luminous. He who justifies himself is not prominent."

The fatigue we feel within the screen—might it be because we have been trying to stand on our tiptoes?

To appear a little taller to others, to seem a little happier... I quietly ask if we have stood tense for far too long.
When standing on tiptoe, one’s center wavers, and legs soon grow numb. It is a posture that cannot be sustained.

Turning our gaze to the West, we listen to the voice of Henry David Thoreau, who lived alone in a cabin in the woods.
In his book, *Walden*, he spoke thus:
"I have never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."
"We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers."

Thoreau did not view time alone as 'poverty' or 'alienation'. Rather, he considered it a rich time to meet himself most deeply.

In the digital world, we may not be physically alone, yet mentally, we may be trapped in the gaze of others.
Could true poverty not be a small number on a friends list, but rather the condition of having no time to sit face-to-face and converse with oneself?

The book of wisdom in the Bible, *Ecclesiastes*, whispers this:
"Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind."

I look at our fingers, endlessly scrolling, struggling to grasp something with both hands full.

We are led to consider whether that busyness is truly filling our hearts, or if it is merely flailing about, trying to catch the wind.

They say emptying is not the opposite of filling, but the process of widening the vessel to be filled.
What makes your heart poor right now might not be lack, but perhaps, too much noise.

Close your eyes for a moment, tired from glancing sideways at the lives of others.
Lower your heels, and stand, letting the entire sole of your foot rest comfortably on the earth.

Rather than the brilliance within the screen, how about feeling the texture of the quiet air flowing beside you right now?
For true abundance likely hides not in what is seen, but in what is felt.

This day, I hope you might find the space to briefly disconnect, and invite the friend known as solitude.

This was Ditto, signing out.