★Solitude, Leadership and Facebook

Hi all,

I’ve read a couple of fascinating articles recently and I’d like to share them.

The main point of the first article is that without creating a space for your thoughts to arise, you’ll have nothing but a postmodern collage, a hodgepodge of carbon copy thoughts, totally unoriginal, and absolutely not you. Facebook features here not only because people feel the need to post their feelings on Facebook to make them real (which is terrifying in itself) but also because people are so addicted to the meaningless miniatures, the baseless, exaggerated or at best selective vignettes of peoples lives that they don’t create this space, and therefor never get the chance to be who they are, let alone express it. Well, that’s my reading of the article anyway, as it fits in with what I’ve been pondering recently regarding expression.

The article is called The virtues of solitude and I encourage you to read it. I’d also love your thoughts on the matter.

The second article is one that was recommended to me by a friend when I mentioned the first article to him. It’s called Solitude and Leadership and was delivered in 2009 at a United States Military Academy! Not the place I’d usually look for insight, but it was a recommendation from a like minded friend so I persevered with the lengthy article and was rewarded with a fresh perspective. He also talks about making space for you. He doesn’t mention meditation, but talks about books, and finding yourself in and with a close friend, and escaping things like Facebook that offer nothing but a shallow and artificial glimpse of the times, and encourages the same kind of thinking in you.

Once again, a worthwhile read, but you’ll need to spend some time with this one. If you do take the time to read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you Lee, True, not many deep thinkers on fb. I’ have made some great interesting friends on fb. I’ve been in the real world so long, I can get the nuances…probably not many go that far in understanding people. It’s my major. Humanities. So it interests me a lot’ We definetly do need real leaders.! My answer right now to who’s running is None of them.

http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/..

nice articles lee

i think the society we live in has made stimulus junkies out of us, ive often had to use music because i felt incredibly restless in silence – that was an hard mode of behaviour to break out of and eventually was forced upon me when my ipod broke (a blessing in disguise perhaps?)

i often notice that whenever i have some crazy experience travelling or see a great movie or read a fantastic book i find my mind designing a facebook status update to share how crazy / great / whatever that certain experience was. i think again its the hit of validation we get when people comment on our tweets / updates – have we become so reliant on outside validation that we need it for reality to seem real?

My first thoughts on Facebook ~ I left. And it doesn’t matter. Sure , I liked keeping in touch with family and really liked catching up with some that I lost contact with. But , we can keep in touch other ways and don’t need fb to do that. It is not a place to discuss deep topics , no one gets it. Nor is a place to air dirty laundry or fight with another, yet this is what happens a lot. Definitely wasted space, a time waster and one thing I often look back on when making a decision is IF IT DOESN’T ADD VALUE TO MY LIFE THEN I DON’T NEED TO HAVE IT.

My thoughts on solitude and leadership ~ as most who know me know I am thirsty for a spiritual connection and my first influences were that which I learned in church of Jesus. His example to go off by himself and pray , or meditate, or ponder , is a perfect one.

Now I am going to go read that fabulous article , thank you Lee :)

Hi Lee,

I just wanted to comment on that first essay “The virtues of solitude”.

I agree with it completely. I only use Facebook as a directory to reach friends and extended family whom I cannot reach otherwise.

I thought about clicking “Like” for bmindful but I’m too skeptical of advertised religiosity on Facebook. I only mention bmindful if anyone asks me what I read.

Thanks for posting this. It helps erase any suspicion I had that I was anti-social for not revealing much on Facebook.

~ AccidentalNote