Joe Kraus says that “we’re creating a culture of distraction.” A distracted lifestyle, he says, “threatens the key ingredients behind creativity and insight by filling up all our ‘gap’ time with stimulation.” We’re not present in time.

In other words, idle time isn’t necessarily wasted time. Similarly, a few seconds spend checking Notifications or whatever isn’t necessary time better spent than gazing out the window on a bright morning as you wait for your companion to return from paying the check in Midtown at a Wednesday breakfast. For instance.

Watch the entire talk if you can, or read through his rough notes. He hits upon a significant benefit to conquering distraction:

Imagine the world 10 years from now. My third grader will be graduating high school. What does that world look like? I’d guess that it’s going to be more fast paced than ever. That people are going to be even more distracted, even more unable to pay attention to things for any length of time. Even less able to tolerate boredom. Even less able to pay attention to one another.

Now imagine your own child in stark contrast to that culture of distraction. Technically literate, but also balanced. A calmer presence. Not distracted. Not constantly seeking out mindless stimulation. An ability to make real human connection by not signaling that there might be something better on his smartphone to look at. An ability to pay attention to a problem for a long time.

I believe that the biggest gift we can impart on our kids is the ability to be mindful – to pay attention to the things and to the people that are actually around them. In 10 years, that’s going to feel VERY VERY different than the norm.

How can we be more healthy, or mindful, or intentional, when it comes to being the sort of person he outlines? One approach: improve our stamina:

One step, I think, is to take a weekly holiday from your devices. Take a break from distraction. I’ve started it. From sunup Sunday to when I put the kids to bed I do no phone, no email, no TV, no radio. Books are fine, but not on my kindle. I want to be open the possibility of gap time.

Catholics in some places are adopting similar ideas; they’re abstaining from the luxury of distraction and digital devices on Sundays like their brothers and sisters abstained from the luxury of meat in the past.

Without maintaining clear boundaries, life becomes overwhelming and exhausting. I feel worse physically. Slower. Fatter. Dumber. I feel worse spiritually. Drained. Limp. Dead. I feel worse emotionally. Anxious. Unsettled. Out of balance. So when I see Arianna Huffington advocate sleep, and Sheryl Sandberg’s candor about leaving work at 5pm, and Fred Wilson share his straightforward daily routine, I hear something of an echo. That is: We are human. Focus and consistency and limits can set us free.

Thomas C. Kohler writes on the importance of Christian tradition. Specifically, on the importance of Christian tradition in creating the conditions for social solidarity in the modern period:

Among Catholics, sustained and sophisticated reflection on social, economic, and political problems stretches back to the time of the French Revolution, when on the night of August 4, 1789, the National Assembly simply abolished the existing order. François Furet wrote that this night “marks the moment when a juridical and social order, forged over centuries, composed of a hierarchy of separate orders, corps, and communities, and defined by privileges, somehow evaporated, leaving in its place a social world conceived in a new way as a collection of free and equal individuals subject to the universal authority of law.” Those decisions, Furet remarked, amounted to “philosophy’s destruction of a world.”

The nearly overnight creation “of a wholly modern, individualistic society,” Furet points out, posed a new and monumental problem: Just how would these free, sovereign, equal, and wholly autonomous individuals be related to and united with one another? This is the heart of what came to be known as “the social question,” which raises fundamental queries about human nature and the possibilities for pursuing life in common. It addresses political, economic, and legal relationships; the nature of the family, work, and other social relationships; the role of the state; the institutions of civil society; the anthropology of the person; and more. Thinkers as diverse as Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, Herbert Spencer, Max Weber, and the holders of the Chair of Peter, to name but a few, all have addressed the social question in one form or another. It largely defined nineteenth- and twentieth-century politics, with communism and nationalism posing two of the most powerful and dangerous ideological answers. Perhaps more than any other, it remains the most pressing issue of our day as well.

The humanities in general, and philosophy in particular, are consistently given short shrift. Young people are essentially told not to bother with it, or worse, to indulge exposure to it with a wink. These attitudes are totally contrary to my lived experience. My connection to literature, to history, to philosophy, and to faith are what get me up in the morning. They provide context for my life—for my hopes, for my struggles, for my relationships, for everything. For these reasons, I really like the phrase Kohler uses: “philosophy’s destruction of a world.” Because philosophy can do that. It can seem so innocent, of periphery value, until it reshapes an entire order.

I also think there’s a lot to the idea that “the social question” born in 1789 remains “the most pressing issue of our day,” because it’s one we’re litigating every day in global politics, if not philosophy.