Displacement.

I am not a science person.

I am not a science person.

I am not a science person.

Just wanted to get that out of the way in case you ARE a science person, because I’m about to get seriously carried away with pseudo-scientific jargon and analogies. Let it be known: I majored in English and minored in sweater collections.

Anyway, I’ve been ruminating on the notion of displacement. What is displacement, you ask? I have no idea. Well, I kind of do. But probably* not enough to qualify me to be writing on the topic. If you don’t know what it is, why in the heck are you writing about it? Who knows? Ask me another.**

Oh, I could post one of the informative YouTube videos I screened but frankly, I got bored looking at them (ENGLISH MAJOR), plus I feel that everyone here can agree on what’s going to happen if I chuck a hardboiled egg into a mason jar full of water.

This isn’t rocket science (let’s face it– this probably isn’t even really science at all. This is just me saying random things) but I do believe the denser material is going to displace the less dense material. As much as it may like to, that egg isn’t going to float unless it’s rotten. And if that egg is rotten, it’s got more pressing problems than whether or not it can pass its swimming lessons.

Displacement theory seems to run in reverse when applied to our lives. It’s not the dense, valuable items displacing the lightweight ones; it’s typically the fluff replacing that which is solid and meaningful.

This week, for example, I allowed the following ‘displacements’ to take place in my life:

 

Chips and twizzlers displaced my healthy eating goals.

The Good Wife*** displaced prayer and meditation.

Facebook displaced playing with my daughter.

A few thoughtless Starbucks runs displaced about $20 in savings.

 

And where was I at the end of all this? Spiritually, physically, emotionally and materially poorer. Nice trade-off.

Why do we allow all manner of soul-sucking crap to force out that which we truly value? I don’t know anyone who would truly rather double-check their Twitter feed for the eighteenth time than go for a nice walk with a friend and yet here we are, ON THE INTERNET, probably not solving world hunger while we’re at it.

I had a good habit going once that I’d like to start rebuilding. Instead of mindlessly logging on to all my social media accounts first thing in the morning and leeching off them all day long, reduced by eventide to an extremely grumpy shadow of my former self, I would take up a sheet of paper and pen and map out a plan for my internet usage that day. A typical list would look something like this:

 

• Find falafel recipe
• Update baby book entries
• Email realtor
• Download diaper pattern, pick out fun fabric
• Pre-order Vestiges & Claws (yaaaaay!)

 

I’ll tell you what didn’t make the cut:

 

• Check Facebook, feel like lesser person after reading about how everyone else successfully cleaned their house, wrote the great Canadian novel and climbed a mountain (and baked a pie)
• Go on Buzzfeed for 2.5 hours, instantly forget everything I read
• Follow ad to clothing website, browse collection aimlessly and feel anxious about all the clothes I don’t own, don’t need and probably don’t even want
• Click on today’s Google Doodle, find out one more thing I never needed to know

 

It wasn’t that I intentionally omitted these latter items, either; it’s just that once I began using the internet regularly as a tool for meaningful activity, my incessant habit of non-essential internet consumption began to calm down. After a day, I was less cranky in the evenings. After a week, I hardly remembered that I had a Facebook account at all.

Now I’m wondering how I allowed this wonderful habit that I enjoyed so much to fall by the wayside. Wait, I know! Displacement!**** I’m a rotten egg!

Seriously, though, maybe that’s the key. Maybe it’s not only the stuff I consume that needs to be more meaningful; maybe it’s my heart that needs to become softer, my desires that need to become deeper in order for me to reach the bottom of that jar. I need to be a more meaningful person. I long to possess what Richard J. Foster calls the inward reality of simplicity.

Okay, enough talking– time for a little doing.

Here’s my list for today:

 

I made a sticky-tab version to keep me honest:

 

If you want to know why I didn’t just make one sticky-tab list to begin with, please see paragraph #2.

 

* Definitely.

** It’s probably in your best interest to stop asking anything at all.

*** That would be the TV show, not me. In case you were wondering.

**** I’m beginning to suspect that the concept I might actually be attempting to explain is buoyancy but do you really want me to start talking about science all over again? I didn’t think so.