I've been tempted lately to write something not related to technology, but instead more personal, which is something I promised myself I'd never do on a blog-like site. Since I've never really explained my reasoning here, I'll briefly say that it stems from the public nature of blogs and the private nature of things that happen in your personal life, and the inappropriate mixing of the two for what I can only imagine are questionable motives. Journals and diaries were always meant to be private, and if you have to do any sort of suppressing of your thoughts and feelings because you're mindful of prying eyes, you're not dealing with those issues. But I digress as this isn't a problem with the internet I wish to address today.
The problem I wish to address relates more to the speedy nature of the internet, and the endless fountain of information accessible through it. The internet is like the fast food restaurant chains and the introduction of the automobile before it: it allows us to get what we seek faster than ever before. I was watching TCM this evening and it had a short segment on the introduction of cars, then began to play the Orson Welles flick The Magnificent Ambersons. In both the short and the beginning of the movie, they address the growing pace of life, and how, seemingly miraculously, people seemed to have time to do just about anything in the old days despite having a slower time getting to them. Picnicks, visiting, tea parties, and my mind immediately started to add things: reading, writing, exercising....living. Things I have more of a problem with personally, so the nature of this post is very irregular for this blog, but I find the need to talk about the negative effects the internet has had in taking up my free time and leaving me with pretty much nothing with which to do things I keep putting off, rather than just taking the time to finally do them.
And that's the real problem, isn't it? Taking the time to do things. I always feel there's just never enough time...never enough time...that life's a big hustle. I'm always so busy using the web to feed answers to any little question that might arise from my rushing stream of thoughts--reading feeds and constantly refreshing forums to see if there any new posts to respond to. I get so frantic that I never even finish reading each little news article or thread, I'm rapidly switching between tabs, reading a paragraph here, jumping to another page and reading a paragraph there, switching to another tab and reading a post, and then to another tab to see the latest feed that just arrived, and then back to the article I had been reading again. I'm ADD of course, and I'm sure watching a lot of TV as a very young child didn't help that, but it seems I can't sit and take the time to actually absorb things, I have to experience things in little bite-sized pieces at a time, before one subject gets too old and I have to switch to another one right away. It's getting obsessive and crazier as time goes on I fear, and I don't think I'm the only one who's affected by this, as there are many young people these days who can't simply sit and watch a movie for instance, without looking down at their cell several times to check Twitter or respond to a TXT message.
In fact it was thanks to a rather nasty thunderstorm today that knocked out our internet service for a short time that I was able to sit down and actually watch some of the Orson Welles programming TCM was showing, and was surprised to find out about all the movies he made that I wasn't even aware of. Alas I only made it through the last half of Citizen Kane (a movie I've seen a few times already and love), Lady From Shanghai (which I hardly knew of), and the beginning of The Magnificent Ambersons before having to get up and do something else. But considering I hardly even sit through movies at all lately that's quite an achievement, especially since these movies in particular are old, and therefore slow-paced and dare I say "boring" compared to modern Hollywood affair. TCM gets far less viewing time outta me than I'd wish because of that, even though it's one of the best stations on TV right now. I guess that's another reason I like Blu-Ray so much, because with the superficial appeal of the HD goodness I've actually sat through more quality movies lately than I have in...probably even years. But that's getting off topic.
There's a lot more I wish I'd do than watch movies, and a big part of that is creative pursuits. I have a lot of creative talent in me if only I'd have the patience to fully pursue them. I'd love to do more writing, and the only time I find I'm able to type out an entire blog post for this page is when I'm sitting quietly in my bed with my netbook. If I'm on my desktop, that's when I'm a Tasmanian devil whirling through tidbits of information, and juggling in a little TV on top of it.
What I'm really doing is not giving myself any time. I'm not being patient with myself, exploring myself--my interests and my personality--and fulfilling my greatest desires. All that I'm left with then is a bad case of information overload, and an empty feeling at the end of the day as a result of truly doing...nothing. So if there's anyone that actually reads this blog besides me, I encourage you to just take a moment, ten minutes, thirty minutes, as long as you can stand to just put down the iPhone and pull yourself away from all the online crap and the information age to do something you've been wanting to do for a long time now. I guarantee that you'll come away from the experience feeling more fulfilled than you have in a long time.
