There is nothing passive about “witnessing.” It requires our full attention.

Witnessing isn’t the same thing as “watching,” or “seeing,” or “looking” or even “observing,” although they’re all in the same family. And it has a couple of niche meanings — unless you’ve managed to live your entire life without ever seeing a police procedural or reading an airport novel, you know that it is possible to “witness” a crime on a relatively passive basis: you just happened to be there when someone pulled the gun and fired, and now you’re “a witness.” But even in that context, there’s ritual around it. “Being a witness” to something implies you’re taking a certain level of responsibility for what you’re observing. We don’t “witness” a Simpsons episode; we watch it. We don’t “witness” that the weather forecast calls for sleet; that’s “noticing.”

We witness legal documents — people’s wills, their birth, marriage and death certificates. We do this by physically signing them and endorsing them as legitimate, and if one of those documents is contested in court for some reason, and your name is on it? You have a responsibility there. On a witness stand in a courtroom, you take an oath to report faithfully on what you have witnessed, and if you lie, it’s such an act of verbal violence that in this country you can go to prison for it.

In Christianity, “witnessing” means officially professing and proclaiming Jesus Christ — and while no one currently living literally witnessed a literal resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, this word explicitly indicates a mindful, responsible and active act of vouching for the notion that he did.

In a totally secular, common-parlance sense, witnessing probably has its closest relative in the contemporary notion of “holding space.” And you know what? It’s not easy. Even before the days of mass distraction by shiny glittery flickering screens with their panoply of delights and treacheries. In the context of the social media world, “witnessing” is not only harder — it’s all too often quietly replaced by what are arguably its own exact opposites: voyeurism and dismissing.

The Internet is a Wild Wild West of avatars and lawless keyboard trolls feasting on the krill of well-intentioned, earnest and perhaps naive or uneducated users who swarm the platforms and applications as they swell in waves of popularity. It reminds me of John Williams Waterhouse’s depiction of Hylas and the nymphs. We know what happens when he is seduced into that water.

Paradoxically, our beloved super information highway is also a place for intimacy and connections vital to our survival. I have met many friends and people I called family on social media. So why would I quit social media? Because bullies get to say whatever they want and they don’t have to listen or show any honesty or transparency? No. As vexatious as that all might be, it’s not the issue.

I quit social media for the same reason alcoholics quit drinking. For the same reason sex addicts quit porn. Because it’s toxic and destroys relationships if you become dependent on it. The truth is I have the attention span of a cat with lasers and had no discipline in my Internet usage.

Pema Chodron and other present teachers have reflected upon our complexities long enough to play translator for the slow kids in the back (check, please!). She reminds us to practice loving kindness here and now, and when things get rough. So,…what are we waiting for?

But what’s the point of all of us? Obviously, I can’t possibly know the answer with any certainty; there are billions of galaxies and billions of humans, and we are finite. But I suspect it has to do with action, and service. That’s the best we can be: in-service, for the greater good of all concerned. Being of service means different things to different people, and that’s lucky, since the “services” we each need can vary a lot.

While we’re geeking out on etymology I’ll note that the word “service” is descended from the Latin word for slave. This should serve as a warning that service equals “work” and “effort” that don’t end in “payment.” But in its modern form it has nothing to do with slavery for the simple reason that we choose it.

We serve a meal. We serve justice, meaning both dishing it out and abiding by its terms. We serve a master. We serve notice. (Hopefully we notice service too, so don’t forget to tip your waitstaff generously.) We wear “serviceable” shoes when we have to be on our feet all day. We serve as social workers and ministers, concierges and mentors, housekeepers and car mechanics. And — can I get a witness, here? — we serve as role models, or examples.

Pain is non-negotiable in a human body. To various degrees we all get a turn as it comes tearing through us, often as a warning and quickly thereafter gaining intensity. How good we need to be at Rope-a-dope before we can begin learning how tosurvive a progressive, degenerative, neurologic disease?

We all experience trauma and suffering, loss and grief, rage and confusion. It’s not special. It doesn’t make me or anyone experiencing chronic pain special. But it does offer an amazing portal if you’re willing to walk through it. If you commit to being an active witness — and I mean taking full responsibility for your observations — you’ll tend to find you stop shying away from being of service to others because you’ll develop an intuition about what and whom to serve and in what ways.

Nothing deadens intuition quite like the Web — the signal to noise ratio is just off-the-charts wrong, because most people use it to avoid being who they really are rather than the equally available, but somehow less attractive, opposite of that.

We need each other. That’s clear. Developing a service mindset is a really meaningful and important way to acknowledge that. But what happens when we we are overwhelmed by requests we cannot meet? (Short answer? BURNOUT!) If you pull back the corner of the burnout-carpet, though, what you’ll tend to find has been swept under it isn’t “I don’t really care to serve anything or anyone but my own ego.” That’s not most of us; most of us would rather be remembered after we’re gone as people who were useful and accomplished a thing or two. No, under the burnout-rug there is usually a much gnarlier dustbunny of what the wellness community refers to as “FOG,” as in Fear, Obligation and Guilt. We fail at service because we’re afraid of being eaten alive or afraid of other people’s pain, feel guilty over our own limitations, resent the sense that others are depending on us when we can barely keep our own lives together…

Even before Parkinson’s started to eat my brain, I had the executive functioning chops of a toddler carrying juice. At any given time, I’m missing seven social events I’d dearly love to attend, have 2,046 unread emails in just one of 4 inboxes and 203 unread text notifications and part of me is still wondering “Wait, where is everyone? Why do I feel so alone?” It’s complicated! No one’s claiming it isn’t.

Witnessing is a legitimate act of service. Please remember this. It’s in the category of stuff that Pema tackles with wise reflection and humility: Simple, but not necessarily easy. Witnessing takes attention. It takes receptiveness. And it takes a willingness to be responsible. For yourself. You’re not responsible for how someone else feels (um, unless you punched them in the nose and what they are feeling is a sore nose. Then, yeah, that’s on you). And like forgiveness, witnessing others is not something you owe to them, or do for their benefit (though that’s often a fortunate side effect). You do it for yourself. Service inherently means you’re doing it without the expectation of a reward. That’s what distinguishes it from “work.” The reward is peace — and talk about a scarce commodity! If you could get some by simply being there for another human being, wouldn’t you go for it?

I would.