As I finished typing the last sentences of my last (for now) blog post somehow a little piece of my subconscious knew that I would receive my first SASE from my good friend Jonny, and that it would be very prompt. As if on cue, a letter did arrive from Jonny (and his wife Hannah) as quickly as the USPS made possible. After a long (and busy!) day at the shop, followed by a delicious Indian feast at a nearby restaurant I found the letter lying on the table just inside the door.
I wasn't really sure of what I was doing/planning when I unofficially announced that I planned to continue blogging... and then offered continued receipt of said [b]logs via SASE. First of all, I had no idea if anyone would even bother with the time and money (88¢ + 2 envelopes) involved. Also, I didn't have a ny particular writing plans... although these daily exercises have been nice and might as well be continued. And now that I have at least one paper log "subscriber" I have a greater purpose behind these thoughts... I am... a Logger!
Another more immediate effect of the letter (for a letter it was, as well as a SASE!) was to make me excited. I still have a few pen and paper correspondences, and I think half the reason for this is my innate love of tangible memorabilia and all things antiquated. I get this from both parents. I have a pocket watch (waiting on a fob), a physical ledger book, and an old cigar box with recipes on index cards. In high school I would collect paperback classic novels, half as much for the weathered artwork on the covers as for the literary value. And I love letters. So maybe, if I'm being honest with myself, a request for SASEs was partly a clever, subconscious trick to get mail! Score!
But also, as I read over Jonny's friendly words, this letter did well to remind me of the joy of paper correspondence. When I was composing the auto-reply "vacation responder" for my email account I was envisioning most of my communication during this time period as phone-centered. But hey, why not mail some letters too? Catch up on some correspondences? Yeah it costs money, but what's 44¢ these days? Sure it takes time (i.e. - is not instantaneous), but 2 days plus a few hours isn't really that long... So hooray for snail mail
Finally, I've just remembered that I wanted to make some predictions (not the right word) about this month. What do I fear? What do I think will be challenging? etc... One guess I had was that trivial searches would lose their appeal; so far that's been true. If googling an obscure law/fact/thing is no longer an option then the back of my mind will stop urging me to a computer throughout the day. I do think it will be difficult to get by without conveniences such as: apartment-searching, job-searching, obscure item purchasing (with home delivery!)... and checking the weather. Today I woke to pouring rain, psyched myself up, bundled up in rain gear, bike to work... and then couldn't fit all my rain gear into my small backpack when the ride home happened to be sunny and gorgeous. Who could have guessed?
I'll ponder more later. Now to bed! I've got some serious relaxing to do tomorrow!
Sunday, June 5, 2011
The [B]log: April 29, 2011 - Day 2
Wow! Several days of cold weather and then today was gorgeous! Even by 9:20 when it came time for me to bike to work. One of my past computer addictions that I must now learn to live without is wunderground.com - the amazing weather site. The day looked beautiful - not a cloud in the sky - so I left for work with only a sweatshirt - not even a jacket in my trusty backpack. (Also of note: I broke down and bought a bike-specific map of the Twin Cities with my employee discount at work. I took a more "bike friendly" route this morning and was rewarded with prettier scenery, less traffic and few red lights!) By 6 PM it was raining buckets. Ah yes, that's what it feels like to not be able to read the weather's forecast... By 7 PM I somberly called for a ride from Brooke when I got off at 9. She arrived at 8:30 (with my sister - visiting for the weekend and wanting to check out the shop) and there was no rain to be found. The roads had even retained enough heat that all residual moisture on the roads had *evaporated*! Whoops! So I biked home in the end. Lesson learned: when you don't know what to expect from the weather, be prepared.
The [B]log: April 28, 2011 - Day 1
I woke up early today - not of my own accord like the last two days but because a construction worker bulldozing our street rang the doorbell to ask if it was my Silverado parked outside. (It wasn't.) And now I am up. The spot on my desk where my computer used to be looks strangely empty. (I disassembled my computer, putting battery and power cord in one drawer, computer elsewhere.) Last night I partially filled the space with my recipe box and my new ledger. Still, I keep automatically turning to that space - looking for something.
The first thing I did, once I decided that I wasn't going to fall asleep again, was actually to walk right past my desk and head upstairs for a pre-breakfast snack. Fortunately Noor - my housemate who works at Pizza Hut - brought home a pizza for sharing last night. I wandered back downstairs nibbling on a piece. Then what? Without a computer there's really nothing that draws me to my desk, other than the fact that my only chair is there. (I shouldn't say "only." I have a cushy chair that actually isn't that comfortable that I mostly use to drape articles of clothing on.) I sat down in the end and wondered what I should do. That wondering is kind of funny... like it's this void created by the sudden lack of this thing in my life. It's kind of like when you've been busy at school and you wake up to your first day of summer vacation. You wander out of your room, are encountered by the void your former routine has left and pronounce, "I'm bored." Hopefully I won't be bored for long. And actually, this may be the first time I've written in the morning. I kind of like it. But no I have some phone calls to make before work...
The first thing I did, once I decided that I wasn't going to fall asleep again, was actually to walk right past my desk and head upstairs for a pre-breakfast snack. Fortunately Noor - my housemate who works at Pizza Hut - brought home a pizza for sharing last night. I wandered back downstairs nibbling on a piece. Then what? Without a computer there's really nothing that draws me to my desk, other than the fact that my only chair is there. (I shouldn't say "only." I have a cushy chair that actually isn't that comfortable that I mostly use to drape articles of clothing on.) I sat down in the end and wondered what I should do. That wondering is kind of funny... like it's this void created by the sudden lack of this thing in my life. It's kind of like when you've been busy at school and you wake up to your first day of summer vacation. You wander out of your room, are encountered by the void your former routine has left and pronounce, "I'm bored." Hopefully I won't be bored for long. And actually, this may be the first time I've written in the morning. I kind of like it. But no I have some phone calls to make before work...
The [B]log: An Intro
So, remember that time that I went for a month without using a computer? In my last post I mentioned keeping a paper blog (log), and I now intend to post those recorded thoughts here, in electronic form. When I made the comment about sending me a SASE two posts ago, I was serious. Only one person took me up on that offer, and I sent him a nice photocopied log. But now I'm back to conforming to the world.
Behold, the [b]log:
Behold, the [b]log:
Friday, June 3, 2011
99 Problems, But A Vole Ain't One
When life gives you lemons, they say, make lemonade. But when life wakes you up at 3 in the morning and then prevents you from falling asleep again... touché. Life wins. I guess I'll blog.
Obviously, I'm no longer depriving myself from the use of my computer. In fact, I've been using it for a week or so now. I did manage to keep a (b)log of sorts on paper for a while - soon to be transcribed into the cyber-world - but the "research" wasn't nearly as ambitious as my initial dream.
I've been busy lately, but what's new? Actually, quite a bit is new. In the past month I have applied to grad school, begun planning a canoe trip, and begun the search for school jobs anew. Then, just yesterday, I found out that I was tentatively accepted to Hamline University's Masters of Teaching program (pending final application review), that I could still enroll in summer classes and that summer classes began next Monday. I also a seemingly ideal job to apply for, through Americorps, began menu planning for the canoe trip and found out that an old friend had also just been accepted to a Masters program at Hamline and might be moving up to the Cities in the near future. Finally, in order to fund grad school (beginning in T minus 3 days), I now have several grants and scholarships to apply for.
When it should have been falling asleep at 11:30 last night my mind was crunching numbers and working logistics. Somehow this was all going to work out. I think. After what seemed like several hours of tossing and turning, I finally managed to let my mind wander enough to slip into unconsciousness...
ONLY TO BE AWAKEN TO THE SOUND OF MOVING AND SCRATCHING! My first instinct was to think "[bleeping] neighbors!" and shut the window. This I did, but the scratching only increased. Next thought was "my, those ants are up early." (I have ants trying to build an anthill in my cheaply-trimmed egress window. I gave up trying to stop them and contained it with a piece of paper and some masking tape.) I turned on my light to confirm my suspicions and YIPE! a rodent was frantically scampering back and forth on my window sill. (Apparently he had fallen into my egress window bay, become trapped and managed to find or chew a hole through my screen, only to be trapped again on my window sill.)
Now at 3 AM my mind was back in action. Room now fully lit, I grabbed my 25¢ garage sale bicycle commuter gloves and closed in for the pounce. Little vole friend (I've ruled out mouse, and he seemed too fast for a mole) did not like this plan and shrieked as he dove off the sill. It was a short fall to the card table where - again he was trapped. Another lunge, another shriek and another dive - this time to the carpet... and full reign of my room. I chased the shrieking little bugger up and down the walls of my room until finally he made it under my closet door. Great. A frightened rodent trapped with all my expensive camping gear (down sleeping bag, down jacket, camping pads, etc) - including my brand new, never-been-used, birthday REI camping pad. By now I was fully awake; vole friend was cruisin' for a bruisin'.
I finally managed to nab him, nestled under a jacket. I foolishly wasted time (as he tried to chew through my glove) taking this picture:
He managed to escape from me once. I tracked him down once more. Then finally I [stupidly] managed to shove him back out the hole in my screen. Then I tried to fall asleep to him scampering around in my window bay. Various thoughts came to mind including but not limited to: creating a make-shift ramp (a la Brooke rescuing a rat from a pit toilet with a ladle during her time in Mozambique), throwing him food occasionally and keeping him as a window pet, or letting the little blighter tunnel out.
I turned the lights back on, donned the lobster glove once more, took out my window screen and spent a few minutes grabbing piles of dead leaves and rocks in vain, while vole friend shrieked and darted. Finally I nabbed him for the last time and chucked him in a bush at ground level. I likewise rescued a more docile toad. By the time I crawled back in bed my mind was back to school budgets, syllabi, grants and schedules. Soon (4 AM) birds were chirping. Then (5 AM) light started entering my room. I gave up.
Now it's 6 AM, I'm all done blogging and I'm beginning to hear the real ants move their little tiny rocks, one at a time.
Obviously, I'm no longer depriving myself from the use of my computer. In fact, I've been using it for a week or so now. I did manage to keep a (b)log of sorts on paper for a while - soon to be transcribed into the cyber-world - but the "research" wasn't nearly as ambitious as my initial dream.
I've been busy lately, but what's new? Actually, quite a bit is new. In the past month I have applied to grad school, begun planning a canoe trip, and begun the search for school jobs anew. Then, just yesterday, I found out that I was tentatively accepted to Hamline University's Masters of Teaching program (pending final application review), that I could still enroll in summer classes and that summer classes began next Monday. I also a seemingly ideal job to apply for, through Americorps, began menu planning for the canoe trip and found out that an old friend had also just been accepted to a Masters program at Hamline and might be moving up to the Cities in the near future. Finally, in order to fund grad school (beginning in T minus 3 days), I now have several grants and scholarships to apply for.
When it should have been falling asleep at 11:30 last night my mind was crunching numbers and working logistics. Somehow this was all going to work out. I think. After what seemed like several hours of tossing and turning, I finally managed to let my mind wander enough to slip into unconsciousness...
ONLY TO BE AWAKEN TO THE SOUND OF MOVING AND SCRATCHING! My first instinct was to think "[bleeping] neighbors!" and shut the window. This I did, but the scratching only increased. Next thought was "my, those ants are up early." (I have ants trying to build an anthill in my cheaply-trimmed egress window. I gave up trying to stop them and contained it with a piece of paper and some masking tape.) I turned on my light to confirm my suspicions and YIPE! a rodent was frantically scampering back and forth on my window sill. (Apparently he had fallen into my egress window bay, become trapped and managed to find or chew a hole through my screen, only to be trapped again on my window sill.)
Now at 3 AM my mind was back in action. Room now fully lit, I grabbed my 25¢ garage sale bicycle commuter gloves and closed in for the pounce. Little vole friend (I've ruled out mouse, and he seemed too fast for a mole) did not like this plan and shrieked as he dove off the sill. It was a short fall to the card table where - again he was trapped. Another lunge, another shriek and another dive - this time to the carpet... and full reign of my room. I chased the shrieking little bugger up and down the walls of my room until finally he made it under my closet door. Great. A frightened rodent trapped with all my expensive camping gear (down sleeping bag, down jacket, camping pads, etc) - including my brand new, never-been-used, birthday REI camping pad. By now I was fully awake; vole friend was cruisin' for a bruisin'.
I finally managed to nab him, nestled under a jacket. I foolishly wasted time (as he tried to chew through my glove) taking this picture:
He managed to escape from me once. I tracked him down once more. Then finally I [stupidly] managed to shove him back out the hole in my screen. Then I tried to fall asleep to him scampering around in my window bay. Various thoughts came to mind including but not limited to: creating a make-shift ramp (a la Brooke rescuing a rat from a pit toilet with a ladle during her time in Mozambique), throwing him food occasionally and keeping him as a window pet, or letting the little blighter tunnel out.
I turned the lights back on, donned the lobster glove once more, took out my window screen and spent a few minutes grabbing piles of dead leaves and rocks in vain, while vole friend shrieked and darted. Finally I nabbed him for the last time and chucked him in a bush at ground level. I likewise rescued a more docile toad. By the time I crawled back in bed my mind was back to school budgets, syllabi, grants and schedules. Soon (4 AM) birds were chirping. Then (5 AM) light started entering my room. I gave up.
Now it's 6 AM, I'm all done blogging and I'm beginning to hear the real ants move their little tiny rocks, one at a time.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
In Which a Mandatory Recess is Imposed
I'm beginning this post at 11:07 pm and setting the goal for myself to be done by midnight. Mostly I need to get to bed, but also I need to set an ultimatum for myself to actually make this transition. I feel like Bilbo during his preparations to leave the Shire - I'll just leave the ring in this envelope... Oh wait, it's still in my pocket. - it's too easy to continue just a little longer. But, as of April 28, 2011, I will be taking a one-month break from using my computer.
This idea came to me almost immediately after I finished composing my most recent* post. Here, "almost immediately" means that I finished the post, closed my laptop, laid in bed and before I could slip into unconsciousness I was stumbling out of bed for pen and paper to begin jotting down things I might need to acquire in order to live without a computer. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The idea I had so late at night was this: I just spent several hours writing about how I feel that constant access to information (and constantly taking advantage of that power) distracts me from things more meaningful in life. What if I were to simply deny myself that access? I mean, it's one thing to complain about how I lost 2 hours to YouTube yesterday, but it's been my experience that those acts of complaining do nothing to prevent me from doing the same thing the very next day. So why not impose some restrictions on myself? And, for the sake of curiosity, why not boldly impose those restrictions?
[Yikes, I'd better get on with it!] In short, I decided that it would be a good exercise for me to try going without a computer for some period of time. I arbitrarily began thinking in terms of "one month" because it sounded long but not so long that I would cave in before the end. I briefly entertained the idea of giving up just the internet, but upon thinking further I remembered that some of what I was sick of was the daily routine of waking up, turning on my computer... In fact, it's sad but sometimes I come home and I'm bored - or I just can't think of something I "should" be doing - and I'll turn on my computer. And if nothing on my desktop catches my attention in the first 5 seconds, I'll open a web browser. If in the 5-10 seconds that takes I can't think of any urgent question that needs to be answered via Wikipedia, imdb, etc. I'll start going through my bookmarks: blogs, comics, Facebook, the weather... I'll just click on stuff on autopilot, realize what I've done and then try to "remember" what industrious reason I had for being on this site. It's almost like - as Randall Munroe describes in this post - my mindless surfing is somehow physiological, neurological... neurochemically-rewarding or something. ... No, I needed to quit it all for this truly to be an experiment.
Once it was decided that I should trying giving up the use of my computer, my practical mind quickly turned to just what would need to happen before I quit. What were the "essential" tasks that I routinely used my computer for? Correspondence, getting directions, bookkeeping, shopping, checking the weather forecast to name a few. Wow. Suddenly this seemed like more than I might be ready for. Where would I be without Google Maps? without Amazon.com? I started making a list (hence the midnight scramble for pen and paper) of physical objects I would need. A calculator, a ledger book, phone book, a map... Huh. And the funny thing is, I didn't get much further than that. I did live in a big city. Sure Amazon is cheap and convenient and all, but surely I could find a pair of shoes at the local mall. And I do have a phone (and a mailbox). If people really need to get a hold of me, they can - probably even more quickly by phone than by email. Turns out life without a computer might not be that difficult; we're just to complacent to realize it.
I ordered a calculator, ledger book and map of St. Paul from Amazon.com. Providence sent a phone book to the front doorstep the very next day. I ordered a book of checks from my local credit union and I was set. (I even sent back the map of St. Paul. It was pretty lousy for $8.)
Finally, I had to "make my final preparations." And this is what took over 2 weeks. Every time I would think I might be ready to begin my experiment some pressing thing (plane tickets, apartment searches, ... whatever) would come up and delay me. But as this thing has weighed heavier on my back I've begun to realize that there will never be an end to the things I "need" my computer for. But my hypothesis is that I will slowly discover how little I actually "need" anything so petty as a machine. This morning in a frenzy of internet searches and printing I resolved that today would be the last day. And so it is.
I have 2 more minutes. In closing, I would like to say that I do not want to stop blogging for a month. If anything, I'm hoping to use some of my newfound free time to write more. Though it might be more accurately called "logging"... or something (?). In any event, I haven't figured out the details, but if you want to keep reading what I write, send a SASE to
1012 Burgess Street
Saint Paul, MN 55103
and I'll figure out some way to get what I write on a page for you. My time is up. Good night internets. Good night computer.
* "recent" being 2.5 weeks ago - further testimony to the addictive hold my computer has held on me.
This idea came to me almost immediately after I finished composing my most recent* post. Here, "almost immediately" means that I finished the post, closed my laptop, laid in bed and before I could slip into unconsciousness I was stumbling out of bed for pen and paper to begin jotting down things I might need to acquire in order to live without a computer. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The idea I had so late at night was this: I just spent several hours writing about how I feel that constant access to information (and constantly taking advantage of that power) distracts me from things more meaningful in life. What if I were to simply deny myself that access? I mean, it's one thing to complain about how I lost 2 hours to YouTube yesterday, but it's been my experience that those acts of complaining do nothing to prevent me from doing the same thing the very next day. So why not impose some restrictions on myself? And, for the sake of curiosity, why not boldly impose those restrictions?
[Yikes, I'd better get on with it!] In short, I decided that it would be a good exercise for me to try going without a computer for some period of time. I arbitrarily began thinking in terms of "one month" because it sounded long but not so long that I would cave in before the end. I briefly entertained the idea of giving up just the internet, but upon thinking further I remembered that some of what I was sick of was the daily routine of waking up, turning on my computer... In fact, it's sad but sometimes I come home and I'm bored - or I just can't think of something I "should" be doing - and I'll turn on my computer. And if nothing on my desktop catches my attention in the first 5 seconds, I'll open a web browser. If in the 5-10 seconds that takes I can't think of any urgent question that needs to be answered via Wikipedia, imdb, etc. I'll start going through my bookmarks: blogs, comics, Facebook, the weather... I'll just click on stuff on autopilot, realize what I've done and then try to "remember" what industrious reason I had for being on this site. It's almost like - as Randall Munroe describes in this post - my mindless surfing is somehow physiological, neurological... neurochemically-rewarding or something. ... No, I needed to quit it all for this truly to be an experiment.
Once it was decided that I should trying giving up the use of my computer, my practical mind quickly turned to just what would need to happen before I quit. What were the "essential" tasks that I routinely used my computer for? Correspondence, getting directions, bookkeeping, shopping, checking the weather forecast to name a few. Wow. Suddenly this seemed like more than I might be ready for. Where would I be without Google Maps? without Amazon.com? I started making a list (hence the midnight scramble for pen and paper) of physical objects I would need. A calculator, a ledger book, phone book, a map... Huh. And the funny thing is, I didn't get much further than that. I did live in a big city. Sure Amazon is cheap and convenient and all, but surely I could find a pair of shoes at the local mall. And I do have a phone (and a mailbox). If people really need to get a hold of me, they can - probably even more quickly by phone than by email. Turns out life without a computer might not be that difficult; we're just to complacent to realize it.
I ordered a calculator, ledger book and map of St. Paul from Amazon.com. Providence sent a phone book to the front doorstep the very next day. I ordered a book of checks from my local credit union and I was set. (I even sent back the map of St. Paul. It was pretty lousy for $8.)
Finally, I had to "make my final preparations." And this is what took over 2 weeks. Every time I would think I might be ready to begin my experiment some pressing thing (plane tickets, apartment searches, ... whatever) would come up and delay me. But as this thing has weighed heavier on my back I've begun to realize that there will never be an end to the things I "need" my computer for. But my hypothesis is that I will slowly discover how little I actually "need" anything so petty as a machine. This morning in a frenzy of internet searches and printing I resolved that today would be the last day. And so it is.
I have 2 more minutes. In closing, I would like to say that I do not want to stop blogging for a month. If anything, I'm hoping to use some of my newfound free time to write more. Though it might be more accurately called "logging"... or something (?). In any event, I haven't figured out the details, but if you want to keep reading what I write, send a SASE to
1012 Burgess Street
Saint Paul, MN 55103
and I'll figure out some way to get what I write on a page for you. My time is up. Good night internets. Good night computer.
* "recent" being 2.5 weeks ago - further testimony to the addictive hold my computer has held on me.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The Distractions of Matthew
[9 pm - I turn on my computer, intending to begin writing this post. Instead, I research freehub body compatibility between 7-speed v. 8/9/10-speed cassettes. My question: is it possible to retrofit an older bike with a 7-speed cassette with modern, integrated shift/brake levers, which happen to be only produced for 8/9/10-speed bikes?
...
10 pm - I actually start writing.]
I was going to start writing a lot earlier this evening, but I got distracted. And that's funny because that was going to be the whole point of my post tonight.
Today - a Sunday - I actually slept in, coming off a four-day-straight, open-to-close working streak. Three eleven-hour days, on my feet and dealing with plenty of customers, finished off with a crazy Saturday finale which consisted of everyone and their brother bringing their rusty and dusty (and covered in cat hair???!??) bikes out of their garages after a winter of storage and saying "Could you make this work again?"
[At this point I get distracted by my background music - De La Soul on their album Buhloone Mindstate. They were a pioneering rap group back in the late 80s/early 90s with excellent rhymes. I pause to look up the lyrics to the song Area. Before I get back to blogging, I note that my computer desktop background has been the same for over a week. I search through pictures, finding one of the family cat Hobbes for a suitable background, becoming nostalgic for a number of people of places in the process. Seeing pictures of Pittsburgh remind me that I need to email my former housemates about my stuff being stored there. During the time it takes me to compose an email Brooke emails me a link to a trailer of a movie she thinks looks good. I watch it (Incendies. Looks good.)... return to blogging.]
So like I was saying, prior to today I had been working like a dog. Not to mention that the day before this huge work extravaganza I had spent 8 hours in the bike shop (a nice perk of the job - free use of the shop whenever I'm off the clock) to perform complete overhauls of my and Brooke's bicycles - disassembling, cleaning and re-greasing every moving part, and replacing chains, cables and cable housing.
[Wow, have I really been writing for five whole minutes? Oh yeah, I should finish trying to figure out why I didn't get my last issue of National Geographic before I forget. I go to the website, navigate a million pages, finally find the customer service page - and phew. I did remember to request a replacement issue. Wouldn't want to miss reading about Incas. What was I writing about? I re-read what I've written thus far...]
So, today was relaxing. Still, why do I always feel as though I'm busy. I mean, an eleven hour work day with a 20 minute commute each way is still only 12 hours away from home. I'm awake at least 16 hours a day. Sure I try to spend quality time with Brooke and that takes its share of time, but where does the rest go?
[I get distracted by music again. This time the song Trouble in the Water, still by De La Soul. I look up the lyrics. I pause, remembering the days of middle school - back when music was an event in itself. I would save up and buy an album. Then I would spend - literally - hours listening to the album over and over again, memorizing lyrics, humming the bass line with my deepening voice... Then I remember back to my college saxophone/improvisation instructor telling me that half the secret to playing and feeling jazz was to just sit down and LISTEN to music. Sit down, grab a beer ("or whatever you drink") and put on a good pair of headphones - and just listen. Listen to an album once through for overall form. Is this song AABA? Or ABA? Then listen again, following the soloist. Listen how his solos fit the structure of the song... Hmm. In our culture of iPods and illegally downloading music to the point of music libraries stretching to the realm of tens (hundreds?) of gigabytes, when do we ever actually listen to music. Music is now a second, third or even fourth element of this newly-heralded thing we call 'multi-tasking.' What was I writing about?]
Ah yes, I believe I was about to hint at the thesis of this post: In this modern, technological age people of my generation suffer a good deal of inefficiency as well as loss of quality of life by the constant and nearly infinite accessibility of information. And then I think I was going to flesh that out in another few paragraphs, but oh dear me. Look at the time. I've been "blogging" for nearly an hour already. At least I have my introduction...
But I feel that my lengthy and [What is that word??? <"abnormal"> Hmm... "anomalous"... not sure that was it, but that sounds good.] anomalous intro almost makes my case for itself. The more this idea (that constant access to information might actually be a bad thing) comes up in my mind, the more I become aware of it being manifest in my own life. How many times do I go to check the weather before I ride to work... and then catch up on my favorite webcomics, find a reference to an obscure mathematical principal, only to spend 30 minutes on Wikipedia (but it can't be all bad; I'm educating myself!) thus making myself late for work?. And how many times do I wake up with a refreshing agenda (such as waffles, yoga and an hour of reading), decide to first check my email, get distracted for hours and then realize that I haven't actually done any of the refreshing, life-giving things I was looking forward to?!
One more case study before I begin to wrap up and sign off. The year after I graduated from Goshen I lived with a house full of dudes. Being cheap and resourceful, we signed up for a year of Skype phone service (with a physical internet phone from which we could call long distance numbers, as well as receive calls), facilitating this convenience with an old laptop that sat in our dining room, nearly always turned on, thus enabling our phone. As a byproduct of this setup, we had a computer with internet access already switched on literally inches from every meal shared together. The result was that every (these are going to be exaggerations, for effect) movie discussed was immediately checked out on imdb.com; every debate over factual information was settled via Wikipedia; rumors of new love affairs on campus were verified using the ubiquitous tool Facebook [Google search: "define ubiquitous"... oh good, I did use it correctly]; and of course every new mention of the discovery of an internet meme resulted in looking it up and spending hours being mindlessly entertained. It was fun, and I don't think any of us (myself included) have regrets... but...
But what? Is this bad? Is it bad/wrong to be able to know anything/everything within a few seconds? (Thanks to 3G/4G smartphones, we can now have this convenience anywhere we have cell phone coverage... which is becoming more and more places.) I really don't feel like I can say. On the one hand it's a totally subjective question, and on the other I can see enough benefits and detriments that I don't even have a solid opinion.
The one certain thing is that if I could somehow wean myself entirely of the internet I would make much better progress in my current book...
[An addendum, 4/11/11: This morning I walked over to Brooke's house at 7:30; we were planning to go for a walk then. She was not at her door, so I went inside to find her. She was awake but not yet ready, and I noted her open laptop. "Sorry, I got distracted," she said, "I was trying to figure out how to make my little bamboo plant grow better..."]
...
10 pm - I actually start writing.]
I was going to start writing a lot earlier this evening, but I got distracted. And that's funny because that was going to be the whole point of my post tonight.
Today - a Sunday - I actually slept in, coming off a four-day-straight, open-to-close working streak. Three eleven-hour days, on my feet and dealing with plenty of customers, finished off with a crazy Saturday finale which consisted of everyone and their brother bringing their rusty and dusty (and covered in cat hair???!??) bikes out of their garages after a winter of storage and saying "Could you make this work again?"
[At this point I get distracted by my background music - De La Soul on their album Buhloone Mindstate. They were a pioneering rap group back in the late 80s/early 90s with excellent rhymes. I pause to look up the lyrics to the song Area. Before I get back to blogging, I note that my computer desktop background has been the same for over a week. I search through pictures, finding one of the family cat Hobbes for a suitable background, becoming nostalgic for a number of people of places in the process. Seeing pictures of Pittsburgh remind me that I need to email my former housemates about my stuff being stored there. During the time it takes me to compose an email Brooke emails me a link to a trailer of a movie she thinks looks good. I watch it (Incendies. Looks good.)... return to blogging.]
So like I was saying, prior to today I had been working like a dog. Not to mention that the day before this huge work extravaganza I had spent 8 hours in the bike shop (a nice perk of the job - free use of the shop whenever I'm off the clock) to perform complete overhauls of my and Brooke's bicycles - disassembling, cleaning and re-greasing every moving part, and replacing chains, cables and cable housing.
[Wow, have I really been writing for five whole minutes? Oh yeah, I should finish trying to figure out why I didn't get my last issue of National Geographic before I forget. I go to the website, navigate a million pages, finally find the customer service page - and phew. I did remember to request a replacement issue. Wouldn't want to miss reading about Incas. What was I writing about? I re-read what I've written thus far...]
So, today was relaxing. Still, why do I always feel as though I'm busy. I mean, an eleven hour work day with a 20 minute commute each way is still only 12 hours away from home. I'm awake at least 16 hours a day. Sure I try to spend quality time with Brooke and that takes its share of time, but where does the rest go?
[I get distracted by music again. This time the song Trouble in the Water, still by De La Soul. I look up the lyrics. I pause, remembering the days of middle school - back when music was an event in itself. I would save up and buy an album. Then I would spend - literally - hours listening to the album over and over again, memorizing lyrics, humming the bass line with my deepening voice... Then I remember back to my college saxophone/improvisation instructor telling me that half the secret to playing and feeling jazz was to just sit down and LISTEN to music. Sit down, grab a beer ("or whatever you drink") and put on a good pair of headphones - and just listen. Listen to an album once through for overall form. Is this song AABA? Or ABA? Then listen again, following the soloist. Listen how his solos fit the structure of the song... Hmm. In our culture of iPods and illegally downloading music to the point of music libraries stretching to the realm of tens (hundreds?) of gigabytes, when do we ever actually listen to music. Music is now a second, third or even fourth element of this newly-heralded thing we call 'multi-tasking.' What was I writing about?]
Ah yes, I believe I was about to hint at the thesis of this post: In this modern, technological age people of my generation suffer a good deal of inefficiency as well as loss of quality of life by the constant and nearly infinite accessibility of information. And then I think I was going to flesh that out in another few paragraphs, but oh dear me. Look at the time. I've been "blogging" for nearly an hour already. At least I have my introduction...
But I feel that my lengthy and [What is that word???
One more case study before I begin to wrap up and sign off. The year after I graduated from Goshen I lived with a house full of dudes. Being cheap and resourceful, we signed up for a year of Skype phone service (with a physical internet phone from which we could call long distance numbers, as well as receive calls), facilitating this convenience with an old laptop that sat in our dining room, nearly always turned on, thus enabling our phone. As a byproduct of this setup, we had a computer with internet access already switched on literally inches from every meal shared together. The result was that every (these are going to be exaggerations, for effect) movie discussed was immediately checked out on imdb.com; every debate over factual information was settled via Wikipedia; rumors of new love affairs on campus were verified using the ubiquitous tool Facebook [Google search: "define ubiquitous"... oh good, I did use it correctly]; and of course every new mention of the discovery of an internet meme resulted in looking it up and spending hours being mindlessly entertained. It was fun, and I don't think any of us (myself included) have regrets... but...
But what? Is this bad? Is it bad/wrong to be able to know anything/everything within a few seconds? (Thanks to 3G/4G smartphones, we can now have this convenience anywhere we have cell phone coverage... which is becoming more and more places.) I really don't feel like I can say. On the one hand it's a totally subjective question, and on the other I can see enough benefits and detriments that I don't even have a solid opinion.
The one certain thing is that if I could somehow wean myself entirely of the internet I would make much better progress in my current book...
[An addendum, 4/11/11: This morning I walked over to Brooke's house at 7:30; we were planning to go for a walk then. She was not at her door, so I went inside to find her. She was awake but not yet ready, and I noted her open laptop. "Sorry, I got distracted," she said, "I was trying to figure out how to make my little bamboo plant grow better..."]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)