Over the past several years I have become addicted to the constant inflow of information. Podcasts, audiobooks, youtube videos, instagram, twitter. There was never a waking minute where I was in silence.
When I was in my 20s I used to write a lot. I wrote at lunch, before work, after work and during work. My notebook, a pad of paper rather than anything electronic, went with me everywhere. And before blogs were called blogs I had a decent following for my musings.
My job at the time was in an auto garage sandblasting turbocharger parts. Inside that cinder block cave, it was either stupidly hot or stupidly cold. Entertainment was 90s alternative radio. It was either 91X or its competitor that didn’t survive in the belly of Clear Channel. But music easily fades into your mental background. My only company was my boss but he would leave me to my work for hours.
My mind was free to wander. It was able to reflect on my failure to score a date with the cute chick at Sam Goody, or on my recent hike, or whatever. Thoughts about even the most tiny events in my life, or random ideas, were able to blossom, and seed, and cover fields. But those fields were soon washed away in the content flood. And before long I found checking my pocket for my smart phone was part of the pre-flight to go to the bathroom.
We all like to imagine that we have less free time. And maybe you do. But I look at my own behavior, or my wife’s or anyone else around us really, and I see we do have time. But we choose to squander it. Not all time wasting is wasteful of course. We all need downtime. But it is wasteful to spend hours scrolling through pictures, or words, or videos. Because we often do it with out any joy.
One of the most insidious things for me are youtube tutorials. It’s hard for the alarms to go off because I’m learning something valuable, right? Right? They become procrastination through endless training. They become just another part of the flood.
In the past several years, it was common for me to need a podcast for every activity. I'd use it to fill the excruciating couple minutes to microwave a Hebrew National. Or while waiting for the water to warm for a shower, or even during the shower. As soon as the podcast is over I would fire up the next one and not even give myself a chance to reflect on the previous.
Towards the end of my time commuting to Riot Games, I was remembering how I used to go on long drives and just think. Each day it was 2.5 hours to go to and from Santa Monica. That would be a lot of thinking time. So I stopped listening to anything except music. And sometimes I’d listen to nothing. And slowly my goofy thoughts and grand ideas returned.
Then our collective imprisonment came and media based distractions became a necessity. The source of the boom for the streaming services came at a cost to their customers. At times I found non electronic ways to endure the lockdowns, but the whole experience has left scars. Many people I know expressed having the same dent in their psyche. For many others, the dent is there but they do not recognize the source.
Lately, I have been trying to force myself to embrace boredom. Having a bowl of Golden Grahams doesn’t actually require a YouTube video on the latest findings of the JWST. They can just be eaten to the music of the pug snoring at your feet.
Sometimes you can just be.