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I think that my professors in college viewed it as their goal to not only teach us, but also to imbue us with wisdom, with ways of being. Two things come to mind. One was in a pop culture class, where we were discussing the intake of media, of things we put before our eyes and in our ears.

What do you want to think about when you don't have to think about thinking? It's probably not going to be Facebook feeds, Netflix shows or games. This professor was very conscious of the media he consumed, purposefully limiting himself. It may seem overboard, but why? These are only forms of entertainment anyway. And, to be upfront, he was one of the most peaceful human beings I think I've ever met.

A second moment I remember was in an American literature class. We were going through Cormac McCarthy's The Road. At a point in the novel there are corpses on the road and the father tells his son to look away because once you see something, you remember it forever. The professor went on a tangent and said that people who view pornography really damn themselves because you have a catalog of men and women that you can never forget, that pop up in your memory for no reason at random times. And they are all doing the various things you watched them do.

When contemplating the way to best implement this will restriction of a my media diet, I have come to think that Orthodox monastics have a rule of life that is adaptable to everyday life. They show that, despite what commercials and ads tell us, you can be happy owning very little or even nothing. You can find inner stillness and peace in the modern world with wisdom and discernment, with loving God and man, with not needing to take possession of anyone or anything.

It was St. Gregory of Nyssa who said, "Our greatest protection is self-knowledge." And it was often quoted in college from Blaise Pascal, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

I remember the feeling of awe in hearing a beautiful piece of music; I was sitting, repeating over and over "Comme Ce Jour" by Yuriko Nakamura or "Visions" by Stevie Wonder. But I blaze through hundreds of songs every week now that serve as background noise during work, in between commutes and so on. The songs pop into my head when I don't want them to, the fade in and out.

I've been rarely taking the time out to read or write, most of my free time is spent on things that do nothing but pass time. I find wanderlust and creative desire clawing at me.

And this is not a lament about film, games, TV shows or any other things. There is an artistry in the way that things can be revealed and conveyed through them. I've just been thinking about my dissatisfaction of sitting in a room quietly alone. Not because it's boring, but because, when I bare my soul to myself and see nothing, and when my thoughts are filled with nothing but memes and TV show quotes in between political issues and everyday cares, I wonder about what goes into my stream of consciousness.