What does today's world bring us? What does progress bring us? We can probably all agree on one thing. It brings rush, it brings speed. The pace at which it is easy to lose what is most important, relationships, with God, with people. Those imponderables that make us fully human.
At the beginning, it is worth considering the human condition, the way of life in this 21st century, the Third Millennium. The scale of people's addiction to the Internet and smartphones is huge today. Constantly connected to the phone, which has become a third hand. And on top of that, being online in all social media, Facebook, Instagram, Tik - Tok, et cetera. A person is forced or forces himself to constantly be on the agora. He does not have to prepare himself to go out to people, to stand face to face with them. All he has to do is click and he immediately finds himself in a market full of familiar, famous faces.What does it matter that it is virtual, full of icons that are in reality just a representation, but still. This means that it must be immediately ready to exchange messages or opinions. The Internet is cheap. Access to social media is free. The costs of telephone calls, or those conducted via instant messengers, Skype, WhatsApp, Signal, are also cheap or free. All this creates a lot of possibilities. A person can be constantly online, constantly ready.
Today, information portals and virtual media play a huge role in the perception of the world, including the business, political and social world, providing a solid portion of information every day. The reality presented by the media may be completely different from the actual one. In such a mode, it is easy to fall into the mechanism of an information bubble, in which a person connected to one media outsources and cedes the ability and way of thinking to the media, which thinks for him. That's why he's able to say something different one day than the next. Because the media thinks for him. Well, whoever has the media, has the power.
Shopping opportunities are also huge today, a multitude of products, from food, through clothing, household goods, electronic equipment, to travel. At your fingertips, with a click. Friends brag about this or that and you would like to have it too, you would like to be there, you would like to set off on a journey around the world.
The world has probably never offered so many services at once, has not given people so many perspectives, to conquer it, to learn about it and to develop themselves. This carries enormous opportunities, but also threats. Because... where is the place for silence in all this? For peace? For finding peace in your heart? How to properly arrange relationships in all this? Not to go crazy? Not to get choked up? Not to choke on everything the world has to offer? How not to lose the values that are timeless? And how not to get carried away, choosing smaller things, forgetting about the more important ones? Well, the whole art of living is probably contained in the answers to these questions.
At the same time, it is known that the world, offering all this, tries to draw man away from God, as if all this were the merit of man, who wants to become God and make created things into idols. This is incomprehensible. No matter how you look at it, we are still mortal, a way to immortality has not yet been found, although it is said that many of the mighty of this world can be watered with adrenochrome. Our time here on Earth will pass. And today's civilization seems to say, be staring at your smartphones, laptops, televisions, listen only to what they say there and only one thing, just do not look at Heaven.
And me? And I like looking at Heaven. To know that I know nothing, that our Life is on the one hand a fact, but on the other hand a mystery, that we will not discover everything. With our human mind, we will not understand the mind of the Creator. I accept this in silence, humility and with true joy. I love looking at the starry sky and thinking about my ancestors and friends who have already left this world, having faith, bordering on certainty, that we will meet again. And above all, when I raise my eyes upwards, I know that there is "Someone" there, someone who has planned me, knows me, loves me and will not leave me. This "Someone" is the one, true and almighty - God.
The author of the graphics is Radosław Zaremba.
Author of the text: Piotr W. Motyka, Milówka, 12.03 AD 2025, on commemoration day of Saint Luigi Orione.