Designed to Forget

I just got sucked into a wild vortex on my computer, called the internet, and before I realized what had happened, an hour of my life evaporated. Gone forever.

This isn't the first time I've been pulled in, one link after another. What surprised me this time was how quickly this method of exploration—they call it browsing—led me to forget everything. I was still conscious of being alive, but pretty much everything else was off the screen. 'Vortex' works not as hyperbole here, but as a close approximation of a real mental experience.

While staring transfixed by the screen, I forgot what I had learned in my devotions 20 minutes beforehand. I forgot my identity. I forgot about how I had vowed to live today full of purpose and intentionality. I forgot about how inspired I had just been by the biography I am reading. I forgot the plight of the lost, and my longing to see them come to faith. I forgot to eat fruit this morning. I nearly forgot to go to the bathroom.

Surfing the web is discovery, where the present is always preeminent. All that matters is what's on my screen right now. "Control+W" closes one tab, and I'm onto the next. This paragraph leads to that link, 500 words here to 100 more over there, launching me from thought to thought . This is no zen presence of the present: a meditative and fully here quality. No, I am madly and frenetically flying to the next now.

What am I trying to say? I'm not saying anything about how computers make us stupid and rewire our brains. I am merely expressing alarm at how quickly I come to forget so much—get so entirely caught up in a quite casual pursuit. I don't know whether or not my computer causes it, but it does allow me to see this tendency in myself.

Such forgetfulness worries me. I've been commanded to remember and not to forget. My faith is founded on something that isn't the latest news. It actually happened a long time ago. And today I'm praying for more grace to remember the good news, all through my day. Today I fight forgetfulness.