As I eased into the new year, I thought about a man I met last year. He asked two questions: What does it mean to be a human? What do we truly desire in a life?

Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic magazine and now a contributing editor at New York magazine, is an author, essayist and magazine writer. In 2000, Sullivan, who has a Ph.D. from Harvard, started The Dish, a blog focused on politics and other issues. By the time he ended the site in 2015, he'd written more 115,000 posts and attracted millions of readers.

But it had come at a price.

I met Sullivan when I was one of a handful of journalists and scholars invited to the Faith Angle Forum for a discussion of issues facing our nation. Sullivan wanted to talk about the impact of technology on our soul, something he wrote about two years ago in New York magazine.

Before beginning his talk, he asked that laptops be closed, and smartphones be set to the side.

"For attention," he explained. "Something human beings used to exercise, but no longer do."

Sullivan admitted he once found blogging and the internet intoxicating. Then he realized he was "barely living."

"One of the great mistakes people make is thinking, as I did for a while, that being online and on your phone constantly is a wonderful enhancement, an addition to what you are doing," he said. "But over time, you realize you are present, or you are not."

I'm no Luddite. I'm writing these words on a laptop, and I know the majority of you will read this column online. But what Sullivan said resonated with me, and I turn to you, the readers, for help.

All of us are filled with doubt and pain, struggles and failures, hopes and dreams.

But we rarely share these vulnerabilities. Instead, we turn to social media to create a mythical life.

This year, let me be the messenger for your story, your real story. In sharing it, you can be a teacher, providing personal answers to the critical questions Sullivan raised.

Sullivan said technology was not adding to his life. He realized he'd quit reading books, and wasn't spending time with his husband or his friends.

"I was absorbing information, which is different than knowledge," he said. "I bet if I asked you what you were reading online two days ago, no one would know. But at the moment, it was so important that you had to absorb it rather than live at all."

Sullivan gave up technology, using the internet only for email. He spent a year reading books, and rebuilding ties to those he loved. Then he went to a meditation retreat where he spent 10 days in silence.

"Over time, you begin to settle into who you really are," he said. "You gain perspective on your life and being."

One day, while walking through the wood, Sullivan broke down.

"Something about the place reminded me of my childhood," he said. "I did not have an easy childhood. Boom. I was absolutely back there with all the pain coursing through my brain. I was terrifyingly alone."

Why, he later asked himself, did it take silence to relive that period of his life?

He theorized that much of what we all do on the internet is to search for things that distract us from life.

"I had suddenly stumbled upon the idea that the thing I most wanted distraction from was myself," he said. "The promise of the phone is that you are never alone. There is always the constant distraction. We can no longer tolerate more than 30 seconds of silence and solitude, which essentially separates ourselves from the core aspect of what it means to be human."

Sullivan contends that the phone, always accessible, makes us believe we are connected.

"But it has tapped into a part of our brain that wants validation and abets a creeping sense of loneliness that we have," he said. "That makes us use the devices even more. It renders impossible the possibility of reflection and perspective."

Studies have showing growing cases of depression in young people who feel isolated even though they have thousands of friends and followers.

"It is an absolute delusion to think you are with anyone when you are looking at the phone," he said. "You are not involved in a constructive relationship with another human being. You are in an abstract place, not where your body exists, just an addled part of your brain. You live more and more inside your head. Inside your head, there is almost nothing but noise."

It is silence, Sullivan said, where we come to know God.

During a group discussion, Andy Crouch, author and former editor of Christianity Today, picked up on that theme. He said technology, while making life easier in necessary ways, can also insulate from the reality of life.

"Life is not going to be easy," he said. "If you are fortunate, one day your life will come down to a very small room with a few people who know you, and you would trust enough to be with you at your utmost vulnerability.

"All that technology will be of absolutely no use," he said. "Who will you be at that moment? Who you are in that moment depends on if you were insulated, and thus never developed any capacity for heart and soul to meet that moment with any meaning."

That's what I want to explore this year.

I want reader stories that reveal meaning, heart and soul. Send me your story, and a way to contact you.

I thought about this on Jan. 1 when I stood outside to look at the supermoon, a term for when the moon orbits closer to the Earth and appears to be larger and brighter than normal. Instinctively, I reached for my smartphone to take a picture to capture the moment.

And then I put the phone back in my pocket.

I knew hundreds of photos would soon be posted, all of them looking the same, all taken by people hoping for a click, a like or a heart.

But nothing could truly capture what it meant to just be standing there on a cold morning to start 2018, staring at the heavens, and thinking about the universe, life and my journey.

It was about embracing the silence.

And looking for moments of meaning.

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr