This helped me see a way the alarm section was unclear, thanks.
I don’t mean that Sabbath practice is uniquely important such that if you’re not doing it, this is an isolated emergency. I mean something more like, the Sabbath is fundamentally in tension with living in a permanent state of emergency, such that if you can’t keep it, there will be lots of other things you’re neglecting as well. This seems to be the general condition in our urbanized society. The right response isn’t necessarily to force yourself into a Sabbath practice anyway, unless that’s your high-leverage path to a more systemic solution.
You’re likely already pushing yourself too hard too often, that’s what it means to live in a permanent state of emergency. I’m claiming that we’re already living in a permanent state of alarm, and I’m trying to denormalize that.
Think of it like this—there’s an area-effect spell that causes everyone to inflate the importance of keeping up with short-term tasks and systems, at the expense of their long-run interests or situational awareness. Some people are trying to point out the existence of this area-effect spell, but due to the effects of the spell, their warnings are interpreted as yet another short-term task to add to the stack. What I’m trying to say is something more like, if you agree that there’s a permanent state of emergency, then you should drop everything else and figure out how to get out of that loop.
Part of the problem of “drop everything else” is that it can’t possibly be meant literally. I don’t mean that you should stop breathing or eating until we solve the thing. But the area-effect spell causes people to conflate keeping up with fashions, with basic life maintenance.
This helped me see a way the alarm section was unclear, thanks.
I don’t mean that Sabbath practice is uniquely important such that if you’re not doing it, this is an isolated emergency. I mean something more like, the Sabbath is fundamentally in tension with living in a permanent state of emergency, such that if you can’t keep it, there will be lots of other things you’re neglecting as well. This seems to be the general condition in our urbanized society. The right response isn’t necessarily to force yourself into a Sabbath practice anyway, unless that’s your high-leverage path to a more systemic solution.
You’re likely already pushing yourself too hard too often, that’s what it means to live in a permanent state of emergency. I’m claiming that we’re already living in a permanent state of alarm, and I’m trying to denormalize that.
Think of it like this—there’s an area-effect spell that causes everyone to inflate the importance of keeping up with short-term tasks and systems, at the expense of their long-run interests or situational awareness. Some people are trying to point out the existence of this area-effect spell, but due to the effects of the spell, their warnings are interpreted as yet another short-term task to add to the stack. What I’m trying to say is something more like, if you agree that there’s a permanent state of emergency, then you should drop everything else and figure out how to get out of that loop.
Part of the problem of “drop everything else” is that it can’t possibly be meant literally. I don’t mean that you should stop breathing or eating until we solve the thing. But the area-effect spell causes people to conflate keeping up with fashions, with basic life maintenance.