Tag: distractions

Leaving the Secular Carousel.

A Reflection on the Gradual Reordering of My Life

Over these many, many years as I have been becoming more and more serious about my Catholic faith, I have noticed a remarkable change in myself—one that has unfolded slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, but unmistakably over the last fifteen years or so.  In this article, I write about how the secular world has been shrinking in my life, not out of disdain for the people in it, but because its offerings no longer nourish me.  I have been moving away from many secular things, both by deliberate choice and by the quiet providence of circumstance.  What once occupied my time, my attention, even my imagination, now feels strangely distant, as though it belonged to someone else’s life.

In my youth, I wasn’t a fan of modern music, particularly rock and roll.  But in my sophomore year, one morning while getting ready for school, I tuned into the local rock radio station to find out what the current music fad was all about.  My friends were into that music, and I didn’t want to be left out of conversations.  It felt harmless enough—just a way to fit in, to understand what everyone else seemed to enjoy.

Over the years, my taste in music expanded to that genre, though it never went into grunge or the harsher styles that followed.  But now, even that earlier music has become distasteful to me. The beat and melody might still be attractive, but the lyrics—so often vulgar, suggestive, or simply empty—are sickening.  That’s what gets people hooked: catchy rhythms and memorable musical notes.  The lyrics are an afterthought, or worse, a poison pill wrapped in sugar. I find myself wondering why I ever tolerated it, let alone enjoyed it.

The same goes for television programs.  I didn’t grow up in a house where the television was constantly on.  Until age sixteen or so, television was rare—a special thing to watch, almost an event.  But then something shifted, and before long meaningless programs like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Three’s Company, WKRP, and various variety shows were playing regularly in our home.  Looking back, I am appalled that I allowed myself to waste time on such trivia: scantily clad people, taking God’s name in vain, sexual innuendo, name-calling, yelling, and cheap, vulgar laughs.  I don’t even find those programs funny or edifying now.  The detective and cop shows might have been tolerable—good guys catching bad guys—but even those were repetitive, predictable, and shallow.  And for what?  To kill time in the evening?  Why did I watch that garbage when I could have been reading good books, learning something worthwhile, or helping around the house?

Unfortunately, I was in a marriage once many moons ago where the television dominated the household the moment he walked through the door.  It stayed on until bedtime, a constant drone that filled every corner of the evening.  And even then, the bedroom television (yes, the senseless bedroom television) often blared until 11:30 PM.  That kind of environment was never for me.  I complained, he questioned why I wouldn’t watch because I’d have to have something to talk about at work in the morning with my co-workers.  I replied that I talked to my co-workers about work, not some stupid television program; that’s what I was paid for— work!  I tried to carve out pockets of quiet, busying myself with anything that felt less corrosive, but the noise was relentless, and the contrast between what I longed for and what surrounded me grew sharper with time.

Now that I have been away from television entirely for a good eighteen years, I don’t miss any part of it.  I couldn’t tell you what the latest shows are, or even if there are any worthwhile.  Yes, I still own a television, and I’ve used it to stream old movies from time to time, but even that has gone by the wayside for Lent this year, and I may not return to it afterward.  I don’t miss it.  I don’t crave it.  Its absence feels like fresh air.

And then there is social media—another thorn I am trying to remove.  It is astonishing how easily it lures, distracts, and scatters the mind. Even when I think I am using it “responsibly,” it has a way of pulling me into trivialities, arguments, or endless scrolling.  It promises connection but often delivers agitation.  It promises information but often makes noise.  It promises community but often fosters comparison and restlessness. I am working slowly but steadily, to loosen its grip.

Over time, these renunciations—vapid music, insipid television, thieving social media—have revealed something deeper than mere preference.  They dull the mind, yes, but more importantly, they crowd the soul.  By tossing them aside, I have begun to see the shape of my interior life gradually reclaimed.  What once felt “normal” now feels foreign, and what once seemed harmless now appears hollow.  I find that the less I cling to the secular world, the more interior freedom I gain.  This is not withdrawal but refinement: a quiet choosing of what leads me toward God and a holy life and away from the emptiness and noise that once filled my days.  In that choice, I am discovering a steadier, simpler, more meaningful, and far happier way to live. I write more, I pray more, I read more, I use my life better.

 

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Fusty Skunk, Rotting Fish.

When I lived at the Sage Pointe Condominiums, I never knew which putrid odor would ambush my unsuspecting nose when I opened my door to the hallway or when I stepped on or off the elevator.

The hallway had its own olfactory roulette wheel.  Some days the marijuana smelled like musky, gassy skunk.  Other days it hit like rotting fish drenched in pungent patchouli.  Sometimes it was a perfect blend of old, fusty socks and rank elephant.  Sometimes it smelled of eucalyptus.  Add to that the lingering smell of cheap cologne and cigarettes, greasy sausage, and those scents stayed for hours, only to fade and make room for the next dreadful strain of stench.

One of the building’s finest “amenities” was the elevator, which faithfully preserved the perfume of whoever rode it last.  I have taken rides perfumed by Grandma Weede’s lingering skunky marijuana haze from an hour earlier.  On other days, the odor du jour was a baffling mix of candy‑sweet pre‑teen bath and body sprays and lotions from the Stankle girls.  It was a combination that somehow managed to get stronger the farther down you travelled on the elevator car.

Mrs. Stankle, on her own, specialized in mysterious stenches that defied classification.  Some days it was sugary carrots, and other days it was akin to coconut-musk that went terribly wrong.  And sometimes it was something so indescribable that the only reasonable response was to pray for deliverance.

Adonis was no different.  If he didn’t just return from the gym dripping with smelly sweat, he reeked of a potent blend of sweat and Drakkar Noir, a combination that could have knocked a grown adult back a full step or two.  His life is lived in bold, glossy strokes of sweat, swagger, and spectacle.

Then there’s the Weede Family, whose contributions varied by the hour.  Their hallway offerings ranged from “forest‑floor funk” to “burnt tire with herbal aspirations.”  Or they left the elevator lingering with the aroma of greasy chicken or the tang of old tacos.  Their door was like a portal to a different dimension, one where ventilation systems and their filters went to die.

One entire floor in one of the complex’s buildings reeked of cheap cigarette tobacco that emanated from just one condo unit.

Then there was the smell of wet dog, musty dog, stale dog.  It emerged unpredictably, but usually in the late afternoons, and clung to the elevator walls until it was finally overpowered by some other mysterious stench.

The elevator contributed its own disturbing whiffs of diesel fuel, and that’s a story for another day.

Rarely did the hallways offer the uplifting aromas of barbecue or simmering spaghetti sauce.  When I brought my dog home from his Spa Day appointment, he became a walking air freshener— sort of a jasmine-lavender-powdery scent that lasts until his next appointment.  Since my condo retains this scent, I imagine he also left his trail through the hallways and elevator, just like everyone else, so maybe it was disturbing to others.

At Sage Pointe, the smells changed by the hour because there was always someone contributing to the fragrant or stinky bouquet.  Rarely—oh so rarely—did the hallways offer the comforting aromas of barbecue or sweet baked cakes.  Those scents were the rarities of Sage Pointe: imagined, longed for, and almost certainly elusive.

 

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Squirrely Pearl.

I made my way to the deli counter at my friendly neighborhood grocery store, ready to place my order, when a five‑foot‑nothing woman glided under my elbow with the confidence of someone who has never waited her turn in her entire life.  Before I could blink, she was already whisper‑dictating her order to the clerk.

“Four slices of Havarti cheese,” she breathed, in a tone so soft it sounded like she was sharing state secrets.

When that order was handed over, she continued.

“Six slices of Buffalo‑style chicken breast,” she whispered again, as if the poultry might overhear and object.

This pattern repeated itself — item, whisper, handoff — like a tiny, highly specialized espionage operation.  Then came the tasting sample.  The clerk offered her a slice of Gruyere, and that’s when her true form emerged.

She took a tiny, tiny bite.  It was a bite so miniscule it would have required laboratory equipment to detect.  And she chewed it with her front teeth, slowly, methodically, exactly like a squirrel working through a hazelnut.  Then another tiny bite.  More squirrel chewing.  I half expected her to scamper up the deli case and store the rest in her cheeks for winter.

The whole performance was incredible: she whisper‑talked like Jackie Kennedy and nibbled like Rocket J. Squirrel.  I never did get my order in (I eventually grabbed some pre-cut cheese in the refrigerated case), but honestly, I left feeling like I’d witnessed a rare and delicate species in its natural habitat.

 

 

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The Sheriff of Decibels.

I once lived in a high-rise condominium where everyone kept to himself, and all was peachy with the world.  But there was one night when I received a phone call from a neighbor, informing me once again that my television was on “too loud” and he can’t sleep.  I was watching an old movie, as I usually did in the early evenings if I stayed home.  This was a recurring performance on his part, a kind of neighborhood opera in which he played both the aggrieved victim and the self-appointed Sheriff of Decibels.  At that point, I was starting to wonder whether the sound was actually carrying or whether my neighbor simply enjoyed the thrill of a good complaint because the room where my television is did not butt up against his bedroom, but against his butler’s pantry.

Here’s the twist: I could hear his television, too.  Talk shows, game shows, dramatic monologues, the whole cinematic buffet.  And yet I’ve never felt compelled to call him and deliver a noise citation.  I’d assume he was just… living.  Watching things.  Being a person in a building full of other people doing what people do to live.  It’s part of the deal when you choose communal living over a cabin in the woods on ten acres.

Still, every time my phone lit up with his name on the screen, I rolled my eyes.  At that time of evening, it could not be a friendly hello.  It’s always a report, as if he was monitoring my condo with a sound meter and a clipboard.

I played with the idea that conducting an experiment or two.  I thought of turning down the volume to a whisper—barely audible even to me—and wait.  Would my phone ring?  I don’t know, but I was willing to bet a dime to a donut that he was hearing phantom noises, or he had superhuman hearing, or perhaps the echoes of his own television bounced around his condo like a boomerang.

There’s a special kind of fatigue that comes from dealing with neighbors who are both hypersensitive and oblivious to their own habits.  It’s like being scolded by someone about your manners when they are chewing food and smacking loudly with their mouth open.  You want to point it out, but you know it won’t land.

So, I’ve reached a conclusion: either my television had mystical projection abilities, or my neighbor developed a hobby of policing imaginary disturbances.  I continued living my life at a reasonable volume.

And honestly, at that point, the only thing louder than my television was that special kind of comedy.  Personally, I think he had his wig on too tight.

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Are Our Lives Truly Well-Lived?

A lifetime spent chasing approval, possessions, and the noise of the world gradually drifts away from its own center.  From an early age, we learn to shape ourselves around external expectations, as if our worth could be measured by admiration, status, awards, or the objects we manage to collect, and the amount of money we amass.  Yet these pursuits, however dazzling in the moment, dissolve quickly.  What remains is the quiet sense that we have been living outward rather than inward – living as part of the world, rather than in it.

Philosophers across centuries have warned of this drift.  They remind us that the self becomes fragmented when it is scattered among too many desires, especially those desires that are not truly our own and those that make us look “better” to our family and friends.  Simplicity, then, is not merely a lifestyle but a discipline.  It is the art of refusing to be ruled by the shifting opinions of others or by the endless accumulation of things that promise satisfaction but deliver only distraction.

To live a life well done is not one that has a swanky mansion, a jet set lifestyle, and a fat bank account.  It is, rather, one that turns toward what endures: clarity of mind, steadiness of good character, faith, humbleness, and the courage to act from one’s deepest convictions.  Approval fades, possessions decay, and the world’s applause is notoriously fickle and false.  But integrity and true faith — quiet, unadorned, and often unnoticed — has a way of anchoring the soul.  It allows us to move through life with a sense of coherence rather than fragmentation.

When we stop performing for the world and begin listening to our inner voice that asks for honesty, restraint, and purpose, something positively shifts.  The anxieties that once governed our choices loosen their grip.  We begin to see that the real measure of a life is not what we accumulate but what we cultivate: meekness, compassion, wisdom, and a mind unburdened by the distractions of excess.

This is the freedom available to anyone willing to step away from the noise and chaos.  It is the freedom to walk lightly, to choose meaning over clutter, and to rest in the quiet assurance that a life of depth will always outshine a life of accumulation.

Peace,

Susan Marie Molloy

 

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