“It’s All Just Noise”

Last weekend, my wife and I watched the new Formula 1 film that’s been racing through theaters over the summer, F1. The world of Formula 1, like most any other sport, is just that—a world unto itself, littered with legends, seemingly arbitrary rules, and teams that mean little to the world outside of the fanbase.

I first began following Formula 1—and only moderately at that—several years ago with the release of Netflix’s hit series, Formula 1: Drive to Survive. Since then, I’ve left the door cracked ajar ever so slightly on any news coming out of the sport. What made F1 so enjoyable as a movie was the sheer authenticity of it, going so far as to film its scenes during real Formula 1 races around the world, capturing real fans, real cars, real Formula 1 drivers, and above all, real speed.

The film follows a low-tier, would-be underdog Formula 1 team, APXGP, on their way through the Formula 1 season. After a crippling first few races, the owner of the team recruits a former—and by Formula 1 standards, nigh-elderly—teammate in a man named Sonny Hayes to race for APXGP, played by Brad Pitt.

Before moving on, perhaps some context is in order. In Formula 1, teams race not one but two cars in any given race, with one driver being pegged as the lead while the second driver takes up more of a supporting role. This ensures that the lead driver—the better of the two—has maximized chances of winning. Meanwhile, the ‘rookie’ driver does all he can to keep the rest of the racing grid at bay in the rear while still trying to garner some points himself—more or less. Formula 1 is all about points: if a driver finishes in the top 10, they get points, with points descending from first place downwards. Any driver who fails to finish in the top 10 also fails to score points, putting not only their racing seat in jeopardy for the following season, but gambling with the fate of their entire team also. At the end of the racing season, teams are awarded financing for the next year based on their performance throughout the season. Teams that do well continue to do well, and increasingly so; teams that do poorly continue to languish. If both your drivers finish in the top 10, great; and if one of your drivers crash out or have engine problems, well, then that is why you have a second driver on the grid. As you can imagine, everyone wants to be driver number one, the lead. In the world of Formula 1 where speed is everything,—the driver’s very craft—no one wants to be second place.

This is where the plot of F1 picks up, with Brad Pitt’s Sonny Hayes and APXGP’s rookie driver knocking heads and exchanging blows. In Formula 1, your teammate is also your biggest competitor and rival in many cases. Joshua, the rookie, is young and talented, but equally hot-headed and arrogant. By contrast, Hayes is a seasoned veteran who, though he loves the thrill of the race, has no patience for the foolishness and brash recklessness of his much younger teammate. Whereas Sonny Hayes races for the joy of racing itself, having had the allure of fame beat out of him over the past 30 years, the rookie Joshua treats racing as a means to an end—the end being popularity and renown, even if it ever only be from fans he’s never met fawning over him on social media. As Sonny attempts to take on a mentorship role towards young Joshua throughout the film, he routinely reminds his young teammate that fame, and all that comes with it, is nothing compared to the joy of racing itself—indeed, as Sonny often says to Joshua, “It’s all just noise.”

Even as I sat down this evening to write, I routinely felt the pull towards distraction of some kind, any kind. Like an invisible—oddly strong—hand that tempts me to drown out the silence with something other than my own thoughts and the many innocuous sounds around me. As though even the mere prospect of silence was threatening in some way. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, billions of hours worth of podcasts, it’s all there right at our fingertips at any given moment, ever vying for our attention. It’s always there, and it’s all just noise.

In the second book of his space trilogy, Perelandra, C.S. Lewis makes this keen observation:

“Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement. There is a chattering part of the mind which continues, until it is corrected, to chatter on even in the holiest of places.”

Lewis was writing in a world where little else beyond a radio could serve to distract you. Little did he know—as is so often the case with Lewis—just how acutely his observations would come to define the generations long after him. Only, I fear the rot is even worse in our day: we shun both inner and outer silence. For fear of being left alone with our thoughts, we drown out all the world around us with endless distractions and incessant chatter. “It’s all just noise.”

Life is made up of seasons, seasons made up of years, years made up of months, and those months are made up of weeks, days, hours, and fleeting moments. If we cushion our every waking hour with some distraction or other, do we not run the very real risk of forfeiting much of our lives?

In my own life, I am daily reminded by the Lord that the real “stuff” of the day is found in the little moments, those little moments that I am so quick to disregard, ignore, or pack tightly with some new distraction. Some of these distractions are fine and well, mind you; but surely not that which “is needful” above all else (Luke 10:42)—namely, listening to the still, small voice of the Lord by meditating on those truths of His word that my heart is so swift to forget, or simply attending to the often small matter that He has laid before me with faithfulness and diligence.

Therein lies one of the many differences between our race as believers and the race the world would have us run, between the Kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Formula 1. In Formula 1, speed is everything, no matter the cost to your teammate, the other drivers on the grid, or to your own wellbeing—no one wants to be second place. By stark contrast, the Christian race is won not by the swift and ruthless, but by the faithful who depend in humility on their sovereign Lord. In the Kingdom of God, we are not called to be first, but rather to deny ourselves: “But many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Matthew 19:30).

Let us not be so caught up in the “noise” all about us—whatever form it may take—such that we neglect the purpose for which we were made. Sacrificing our time upon the altar of mere distraction severs us from the very real, very weighty, very joyful reality that we shall one day appear before the throne of Christ Himself and give an account of ourselves. We are not saved by our good works—praise God, we are saved by the good works of Christ—but we are saved for good works: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). I for one have no desire to be ashamed before Him on that day!

And so, while the day remains, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Sonny was right, “It’s all just noise” in the end. So fight the good fight and lay aside every distraction, run well the race set before you, and finish well—not for the praise of men, but for the joy of having raced well and finished faithfully. And not for this only, but for that crown which shall never perish, and best of all, to see Him “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11) and hear those words,

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).

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Photo by Julian Hochgesang, Unsplash