I find this in my writing assignments. Since I work in and around music and the record business there is always something to listen to or write about. One of the greater skills I have to master is finding the music that is not only good (enough for me to listen to anyway) but good enough to write about. I write about things that move me; mentally, physically, and spiritually. So, when I am searching for stuff that appeals to me I am bombarded with endless information on everything having to with artists and new (and classic) tunes. This can get overwhelming at times.
I'm not trying to be a little bitch about it. I realized that I am blessed to be doing the things I do for a living (and I'm far from rich). But the truth is that this same situation affects alot of us. We end up plugging into this electro-infused gatework of telecommunications and entertainment. The sensory overload clouds the judgment, and therefore some of us end up making the wrong decisions. This is when it's time to unplug.
Remember; there was a time when we lived a life unplugged. When I was a kid (not to sound like an old man, because I'm not that, at age 33) we used to spend more time outside than anybody does today; including today's kids. The video games and movies were activities for the fall-out of playing outside all day. Our bodies were tired, but our brains kept moving in that super conductive-teenage way. The games, the virtual representations of the real world, were endeared because; either we couldn't get out, or go back to the real world for a little while. There was a sense of discovery, a love affair with the outside world which seems to be diminishing.
This concept; that mankind is moving away from the natural world, is both alarming and just Goddamn depressing. It is alarming because the line between the real and "virtual" (or computer generated) blurs frequently. This can be very dangerous, especially when we're talking about the influence of strictly, wholly, violent video games played by our kids. The games seem so real (I've played, and play now, some of them) that they sometimes (unfortunately) correlate with a particular kids situations. Translation: If the kid lives in the ghetto, is surrounded by drug dealers and wanna-be thugs, the game is an approximation of his real life!
You wonder how a kid can walk into a school and shoot other kids like he's playing a damn video game? Well, get behind the viewing angle of your childrens games for a minute and things will crystallize for you. The more a person engages himself or herself in the virtual world, the less interesting the real world becomes. This isn't the sole problem plaguing the youth, or us for that matter, but it is a component.
I've been making the outside a priority of late. I make small goals daily (go for a short drive to a local park, or a bike ride, etc.) and the notice in my attitude is apparent immediately. It's almost as if I have been re-calibrated. The feeling itself is addictive, which as great for me, and so I recommend it to anybody that spends their day staring into a computer screen.
This rant was inspired by my dear friend Mina - who once told me I needed to "defragment my mental hard-drive by doing nothing, or meditating for five minutes a day". She asked me to do ten minutes first, but soon realized that was impossible.
ROUGH THOUGHTS TO ADD LATER
----Computers have done miraculous things, and even I can not live without living plugged-in (as a journalist and a blogger, it's a necessity of course)
----I remember getting my first pager in high school (around 91'). The thing was a big blue plastic brick with a digital display that looked like fucking an old Casio calculator.
