Tag: life

It’s like the slowfood movement but for your head…

thoughts on cutting out excessive internet consumption

Computers can be such a time-sink. You don’t have any idea how much time you spend in front of the screen until you start documenting it…  Think a food journal but for your digital consumption.  Have I done this? No, I don’t need to, I already know it’s far too much of my time.  I’m thinking of moving all of my writing to an analog system, simply because I can’t overcome the temptation to waste my time looking up random bits of information on wikipedia or metafilter. Worse is the useless task of checking my email or RSS feeds every five to ten minutes.  These endless small chores eat away my time until I have none left to do the things I actually want to do!

I thought that working at a desk, in front of a computer for 8 to 10 hours a day would fulfill my need to use the device, but as soon as I get home I flip open the laptop and start it up to see just what has happened in the last 45 minutes.  I think I, and those like me, need to admit that we have a problem, an unhealthy obsession with the device and the vast information it serves as a portal to.  The constant hovering over my computer in the hopes of catching some small bit of information (99% of the time interesting but useless to me) is keeping me from the deep sources of knowledge, experience, culture, inspiration and wonder that fill my small bedroom.  My addiction keeps me from my friends and loved ones, worst of all, it is keeping me from myself.  I’ve come to believe that the constant search for “self” is largely driven by a small niche of our consumerist culture (the self-help one that leaves you feeling like someone else or no one at all, and the inability to take responsibility for our actions.  I believe that we can improve ourselves but that is a topic for another day though…)  Back on topic.
The Internet is a useful means, a great tool, but only one of many that we should use in our daily lives.  When it becomes an end, when it only serves to keep us enmeshed in it, it is time to step back and reevaluate what it is we are intending…

Best of all though is that the Internet (and computers) doesn’t provide with anything that can’t be obtained in a more “traditional” way.  Friends and family can be contacted with the phone, or better yet, through thoughtful written correspondence.  Research can be done at your local city, county, or university library.  Games can be played on tables and boards.  These slower approaches have been eclipsed by the convenience of the Internet, but at the same time much of the cerebral process, the thoughtfulness of them, has been bypassed as well.

Just a thought anyway… There might be more to it than that, I am going to be moving to a notebook, and not just for idea capture, for writing though. I can’t sit at a the computer without being distracted by the thought of something else going on on-line that I might be missing while I write.  This destroys flow terribly.

Goals, the Importance of Writing Them Down, and My Own

Setting goals, writing them down, sharing them, and my own!

It’s important to have goals, to set bars for yourself, why? So that you know just where it is you’re going, and how best to plan getting there. Sure, you could go through life without setting goals, writing them down, etc… But, I have a feeling unless you have a great memory and a lot of drive, those goals, dreams, and aspirations will be forgotten.  Writing your goals down is one thing, making them public is completely different. When you write a goal down it becomes something separate from yourself, it becomes real, not just in your head, sharing those goals with others is the next step in making that goal real. Making it independent of you. When a goal is something real it hangs over you more, it creates guilt, and despite what your therapist tells you, guilt is a great motivator, it can and is a good thing (especially in this instance.) Some place you can go to make your goals public? Well your own blog, your journal, a club or organization you belong to, or if you don’t have any of those go to 43things.com.

So here are my goals, set into 3 groupings, 1 year from now, 5 years…, and 10 years… This list will grow and shrink, I’m sure as my life changes, priorities rise and fall, and I go through the business of, you know, living. But here it is now, and I’m dedicated to crossing off every single one of them, so that in 10 years time I can make a new list and begin working on it. I’ve printed this list out, signed, and dated it and it now looks at me everyday, posted on my bulletin board, a not so subtle hint to be working on crossing things off of it!

My goals, To Be Done in:

  • 1 Year:

    • Start Career in politics

    • Scuba Diving License

    • Be enrolled in graduate level program

    • Be engaged

    • Submit work(s) for publication

  • 5 years:

    • Be married

    • Have graduate degree

    • Run for office

    • Be published

    • Be Debt Free

  • 10 years:

    • Have a family

    • Own a home

    • Have a retirement plan in place

    • Be a force for good in politics

    • Continue to be published

I commit myself to reaching and overreaching on these goals I’ve set for myself.

Sustaining the Energy for Change

If you’re looking for direction, you’fe come to the wrong place. I’ve got no clue. I’m writing this as I’m thinking it out, muddling through it. I’d say this was an attempt at dialectic but there isn’t anyone here to respond to my questions. The name doesn’t really matter, I’m throwing out ideas as they come and we’ll see what sticks..

So there’s the question. How do you do it? How do you overcome the inertia of your life when you get a brilliant idea or you recognize areas of your life that you don’t like? The idea, the revelation, is easy enough it doesn’t take any energy or persistence. Ideas come all the time to everyone, acting on them, and then sustaining them that’s the difficulty. I have journals, txt files, scraps of paper, indez cards, stick-its, all full of great ideas, and I’m not bull-shiting you either. Some of these ideas are the kind that you can build a career, life, empire out of even.  I’ve even half-assed followed some of them through, laid part of the groundwork for something great. So what though, I’m not bragging here, telling you how great and smart I am, great ideas like that come to everyone, everyone. Sit in a coffee shop or diner for a day and take notes you’d walk out with enough great ideas to last a lifetime. My ideas are shit as long as they stay on all that paper.

See, there we are back at the problem, is it fear of failure? fear of greatness? fear of standing out of the crowd? I’ve started on some of these ideas, put some time and effort it, only to see myself lose the energy to follow through, lose interest in the idea, and I’ve sat and watched everything I’d worked on cave in on itself. So why looking back on my life so far do I only see lots of foundations, some even have the beginnings of a superstructure, there are no monuments though.

I’m going around the idea in my head, over and over, and perhaps that’s the problem. I sit here thinking about an idea so much that by the time I DO something about it I’ve already become bored with the idea. You can live a thousand lives in the blink of an eye, and see the actions of all your decisions in a heartbeat. Reflecting constantly on what the consequences of your actions will be so thoroughly so that, you no longer are even intrigued by those consequences can go a long way in killing any desire to act on them.

I’m not going to advocate acting on a thought or idea without any forethought on what it entails, that’s too irreponsible. I’m going to try and stop living so much in my head though, less time thinking just what and how I should do something and just try doing it… Maybe then it’ll stay fresh enough, I can sustain it long enough to see some of the change I want to see in my life, or not. I don’t know how thise thing works 😛

So talk back to me here, am I wrong? right?… Let’s go ahead and try that dialectic thing I talked about. It worked for Socrates and look where it got him……..Oh.

Resurrection…

isn’t just for Jesus! Since my internship at the Capitol started I haven’t been able to give this site the attention it deserves. While I was working at Borders I had plenty of time as I was never scheduled for more than 36 hours a week, often less than that. At the Chief Clerk’s Office I work 9am to 5pm every weekday, knock off an hour for travel there and back… Well, I don’t have as much downtime as I used to especially with a girlfriend I want to keep and an active social life (this means whatever you think it means).

I don’t want to make excuses, but I do want to explain and put some things into perspective… I love writing and at some point I hope to make a go at getting some of it published. I don’t know yet if this site is going to help. I started DMS in the hopes that having a forum would help and encourage me to write regularly and it did, when I had more free time. Right now my focus is on doing good at this internship and getting a good job at of it, starting a career…. Yes, in politics. You might think that there’s no point in trying but I’m not that cynical, I think a difference can still be made in this world by anyone, up to and including me!  Once I have that and things settle somewhat, then I can look around and see what needs getting done in my life and doing it.

So what am I to do with DMS (and half a dozen other projects) in the mean time? Mostly slow down. I will be posting here but not everyday, probably not every other day. I’m going to start small and commit to updating twice a week. I can’t say which two days yet, but probably Monday and Saturday or Sunday and Wednesday. I promise that these posts wont be just filler but will content actual content, most of which I hope you’ll enjoy reading. If you find that you absolutely have to read something written by me point your browser to Gamestooge, I’m posting there regularly now, chances are very good you’ll find several posts there by me.

First up here is something I’ve decide to call “Beating the Backlog”, where I show you all the books, magazines, articles, and games I’ve got lined up for “processing” and then how quickly I can get through them. This  is definitely more than just a list of what I’m reading and playing though. I’ll be writing on the thoughts, ideas, and criticism these things raise, This should be really interesting, to give you a taste of it I’m finishing up The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt , just starting Dragon Quest VIII and the Prince of the Marshes and am in the middle of Cryptonomicon, also you’ll see the scraps and bits that become poems ans short stories, or (in most cases) never go anywhere.

In other news my Xbox 360 broke. Microsoft though has been nice enough to fix it for free and pay for the shipping both ways (I suspect this is because they actually broke it before I ever bought the thing).

See you next time!

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