The Joy of Quiet

One of the initial pieces of inspiration for Plough and Stars came from an article I read in the New York Times by Pico Iyer.  In it, Iyer writes about modern society's need for a break from our overly-connected lifestyles and our hunger to slow down - to find the time and space to think.His evidence: The presence of Internet rescue camps in South Korea, our need for software to forcibly shut down internet access whenever we actually need to get things done (I've purchased this myself), and statics showing our screen-time is currently averaging 8 and 1/2 hours a day!But what is interesting is that this is leading to the popularity of places like Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur which charges people as much as $2,285 a night for the experience of being disconnected from TV's in their room.  Iyer says he's reliably told that the future of travel lies in "Black Hole Resorts" where people pay a significant amount of money not to have access to the internet or alarm clocks.Granted, what we're envisioning with Plough and Stars is not quite the same experience as what you'd get at Post Ranch Inn (sorry, no cliff-top hot basking pools or treehouse spas).  But the value placed on a quiet mind, we share.As a city dweller and a complicit victim of the technology that is creeping into every quiet corner of my life, peaceful moments are hard to come by. We try to combat this as best as we can (below is a picture of our best coping mechanism: Sabbath)But I have never been more connected in my entire life - with social networks, smart phones and countless iEverything devices, and still “connected” is not how this technology makes me feel on a spiritual level.From Iyer's article:

We have more and more ways to communicate, as [Henry David] Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating. And — as he might also have said — we’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.So what to do? The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.MAYBE that’s why more and more people I know, even if they have no religious commitment, seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi; these aren’t New Age fads so much as ways to connect with what could be called the wisdom of old age. Two journalist friends of mine observe an “Internet sabbath” every week, turning off their online connections from Friday night to Monday morning, so as to try to revive those ancient customs known as family meals and conversation. Finding myself at breakfast with a group of lawyers in Oxford four months ago, I noticed that all their talk was of sailing — or riding or bridge: anything that would allow them to get out of radio contact for a few hours.

For Dina and I, that time for slowing down is now. For everyone else, we hope that Plough and Stars can help make that peace and quiet manifest.You can read the rest of Iyer's article here.