The Quiet Hour Revolution

How to Bring About an Absolute,
Unprecedented Revolution in Human Affairs
in Sixty Not-so-easy Minutes

1.
Religion matters. The problem with religion is the mischief—often silly, just as often destructive—that religionists get up to in the name of their particular system of beliefs. Better then to say: The impulse behind religion matters.

So too with science. Which also matters, in spite of the similarly silly or destructive mischief that scientists in pursuit of knowledge are sometimes prone to. Better then to say: The impulse behind science matters.

We can continue right down the list of valued human behaviors, can’t we?
(The impulse behind) art matters.
(The impulse behind) technology matters.
(The impulse behind) business matters.
(The impulse behind) government matters.

And so on.

2.
If all those impulses (so much good intention!) matter so much, whence the glitch (the Grinch?) that repeatedly gets us into messes small and great?

By the time most smart persons reach a certain age, they have learned that when in search of enlightenment on large questions, the best solution is the simplest: go French.

Four centuries ago Blaise Pascal, he of the French persuasion, noted the following discovery:

"All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone."

Later he reformulated the discovery slightly:

"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room."
Could this inability be the source of the corruption that so distorts all those good impulses?

Having myself spent quite some years learning to sit still in a room, I’m incline to report that the answer is "yes".

3.
My experience is such that I want (some would say, impudently) to expand Pascal’s discovery slightly:

"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room for an hour and listen to the world."

The reader will note I’ve added three elements: "hour", "listen", and "world".

"Hour" only and not "24 hours" because very few of us have either the wherewithal or the luxury of total anchoriticity. Blessed are they (I think) who retreat fully from the world, but how few in number. Still, even the most put-upon among us can usually steal a daily hour from life’s incessant demands.
"Listen", for want of a better word. "Listen" in the broadest possible senseof "to pay attention fully with all available senses and mental means." Of course there’s a problem here, as meditators have repeatedly discovered over the ages. One withdraws from the yammering world and tries to sit quietly, only to discover that one’s head is fully of chattering monkeys who will not shut up. Well. Over time, with practice, they will. And do. Sort of.
"World" in—again—the broadest possible sense. Worlds seen and unseen, worlds guessed at and unguessed at (pace, Shakespeare). To learn to be open to the world is to learn to value and respect all those impulses mentioned above (while at the same time recognizing the traps laid by their various misguided manifestations).

Thus: To sit quietly for an hour in a room alone and listen to the world. Valuable ways forward become apparent and—as long as the listener does not rise from listening convinced she’s got the answer to all the world’s problems—creatively useful.

There, in that simple skill and activity, lies the seed of that kind of change which is growth.