The Second demon we struggle with is Pathological Busyness, Distraction, and Restlessness. Someone has said that the Age we live in constitutes a virtual conspiracy against the interior life. Today there are a number of historical circumstances blindly flowing together and accidentally conspiring to produce a climate within which it is difficult not just to think about God or to pray, but simply to have any interior depth whatsoever. The atmosphere around us is generally not conducive to inferiority and depth. Instead, it is conducive to bouncing around, and being distracted and self-absorbed.
Narcissism is encouraged.
Overworking is expected. We are made to feel guilty as if we are not pulling our weight if we are not working at least fifty hours a week. How many of you can remember the sixties, when we were told that technological advances, namely computers, would enable us to have scads of leisure time by the twenty-first century. Well, here we are, and computers have simply sped everything up and made most of us feel more frantic. Those emails piling up on your computer even now, all have a sense of urgency about them.