Fully Absorbed

My minimal, difficult to maintain attention span took a sudden reversal.  I had been watching some YouTube's on religion, more anti than pro, of late, scrolling past anything that took more than 15 minutes.  Comments by the late Christopher Hitchens repeatedly captured my interest, so I proceeded to check his most prominent book, God is Not Great, from the library.  The transfer of an e-book electronically failed so I requested the print version which I began reading.  And reading. And reading some more.  About a third of the book, when my intent was a chapter a day for ten days.

He writes of a more global attrition, or maybe a wishful attrition that has not happened yet, unlike my focus on decline that has already occurred.  He takes the view that religious institutions with the discipline they impose on adherents generate evil, which they do.  They also generate art, literature, music, and intricate discussions.  My spin seems more that the experience of being there falls short of other options that can be pursued instead.

After interminable Hebrew School flashbacks while I sit at services in my own congregation, with a Rabbi feeding me strings of interAliyah Sound Bites, though not at all evil, it's good to have my mind challenged in this more profound way, not so much about the merits of the Judaism that I have inherited, but the idea of deity and its historical legacy that we make so many often unconvincing excuses to defend.

Perhaps even more importantly, I had begun to doubt if I had the capacity to focus on any ideas or undertakings without the use of a timer to keep me captured on what I was doing.  This reading went on for hours, only needing short breaks to better absorb what I had just learned.  I really do have the capacity to grant full attention and derive pleasure.  I wasn't sure before.