Where Is Your Grey Area?
"The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception." – Proverbs 14:8
A friend recently sent me a picture of a chapel he came across in Saint Anne, France. He didn’t tell me its name, and knowing him, he didn’t send it because it was famous or a must-see site on TripAdvisor. It wasn’t propped up by cultural significance or flashy marketing. It was simply a quiet, modest space he happened to explore—a place that spoke louder in its silence than any advertisement could.
Looking at the picture, I couldn’t help but imagine myself standing in that chapel, soaking in the stillness and reflection it offers. It’s the kind of place that invites introspection, a space to step away from the world’s noise and think deeply. It represents something we’re desperately missing today—a grey area.
This grey area is more than a physical sanctuary; it’s a metaphor for thoughtfulness, stillness, and debate. It’s a space where ideas can be exchanged freely, where disagreements can be aired respectfully, and where empathy can thrive. These are the things we need to combat the chaos of the world. But instead, it feels like we’re doing everything we can to eliminate them.
Outside the Chapel
When I think of that chapel, I think of how quiet and thoughtful it must feel inside. But outside of it is a completely different world—a noisy, chaotic place where division and spectacle reign. Recently, I heard about Andrew Tate’s announcement to run for governance in the UK. I predicted long ago that figures like him would emerge, especially after Donald Trump’s election. But whereas Trump, for all his polarizing qualities, has the wisdom of experienced people surrounding him, Tate feels like something entirely different.
He is the product of social media—the encapsulation of Twitter in human form. His persona is obnoxious, divisive, and thrives in chaos. It’s almost as if some teenage boy prompted an AI generator to imagine a millionaire entrepreneur in their mid-30s. Everything about him—from the cigars to the yachts to the flashy rhetoric—feels like a caricature, designed not to lead but to provoke.
True masculinity isn’t a curated social media persona. It’s the quiet strength of a father waiting outside school to pick up his kids. It’s the courage of a firefighter running into a burning building to save strangers. It’s integrity, responsibility, and selflessness—qualities that stand in stark contrast to the noise and flashiness that figures like Tate represent.
And yet, here we are, living in a world that mistakes chaos for charisma and volume for value.
The Vanishing Spaces of Solitude
As I looked at that picture of the chapel, I thought about how we used to build places like that—spaces where people could reflect, find peace, and connect with something deeper. These chapels weren’t just about religion; they were spaces where anyone, Christian or not, could come to think and be still.
But now, we seem determined to eliminate quietness and privacy from our lives.
We build open-plan offices where every conversation is overheard, leaving no space for personal reflection or undisturbed focus. Shopping malls and cafes, brightly lit and designed for the consumption of material goods, have become observation zones—places where we judge one another based on appearances, fashion choices, or material possessions. We sit in close proximity to one another, but these spaces foster no real connection or thoughtful interaction. Instead, they create environments where we passively observe humanity without truly engaging with it.
Even our public bathrooms—once a space of unquestionable privacy—are now being redesigned and politicized in the name of progress.
It’s not just about architecture. It’s about a mindset. We’ve created a world where there’s no room for nuance, no space for reflection, and no tolerance for debate. Everything is polarized, binary, and designed to provoke. But the truth is, growth happens in the grey areas—in the spaces where ideas are challenged, where differences are explored, and where empathy is cultivated.
The Problem With Noise
When I imagine myself standing in that chapel, based on the photo my friend sent me, I see it as a sanctuary. But outside of that chapel is a world so noisy and chaotic that it drowns out any chance of hearing our own thoughts.
Perhaps this is intentional. Perhaps we’ve created this noisy environment to avoid confronting ourselves. The algorithms and distractions of modern life aren’t just accidental; they feel engineered to keep us from reflecting on our own hearts and lives. We lean on the noise instead of leaning on God.
And the result is a world where we no longer know what true masculinity, true femininity, or true humanity even looks like. We’ve traded substance for spectacle, depth for performance. We’re building a society where everything is loud, superficial, and carefully constructed to avoid the quietness where truth might confront us.
The Lessons of Solitude
The pandemic was a rare moment when the world was forced into solitude. Many people, probably for the first time, had to sit with their own thoughts. And what happened? A wave of introspection followed. People changed careers, quit jobs, and reevaluated their priorities. The Great Resignation was proof that when given the space to reflect, people will make significant, meaningful changes.
This is why solitude is so important. This is why we need those quiet spaces—the chapels, the grey areas, the sanctuaries of stillness and debate. Without them, we lose our ability to think deeply, to grow, and to connect with what truly matters.
Where Is Your Grey Area?
So where is your grey area?
Where do you go to find stillness, to think deeply, to debate thoughtfully, and to hear God’s voice? Or have we built a world so devoid of these spaces that we no longer even know how to seek them out?
Perhaps the real question is this: Are we doing this to ourselves on purpose? Are we engineering this chaos to avoid dealing with the truths that only emerge in the quiet?