(no subject)
Breaking radio silence for no real reason apart from barfing my thoughts in a quiet corner of the internet, but.
As I mentioned ages ago, I've been recommitting to various hobbies, with the goal of practicing all of them (art, guitar, trombone) for at least a half hour every day, ideally an hour. I've been doing pretty well at keeping up with this, but one thing I've noticed is that, compared to zoning out on Facebook or various stupid games like Angry Birds or whatever, doing these things is really mentally taxing. Picking up any of them requires more than a click, and while I'm doing them I can't really multitask and flit between windows like the internet has accustomed me to doing. So it's a challenge. It's not a challenge I plan on giving up, but a less masochistic person might have.
Which makes me think that as a species we're really killing the quality of our leisure time. Most of my friends were kids before the internet's prevalence, so it's probably easier to stay dedicated to a hobby you've been doing for as long as you can remember. But it's so easy to be passively entertained these days that I wonder about the rates of kids that are opting for that brand of mental fast food instead of taking up guitar, or drawing, or whatever. I remember hauling a sketchbook around me as a kid for hospital waiting rooms, and playing my instrument on weekday afternoons because there was nothing better to be doing, but if you'd have thrown a smartphone at me I'd have been all over that shit, I'm sure. In fact my long break from my hobbies was started by getting too wrapped up in stuff online.
Not rocket science and I'm sure there are a lot of people smarter than I am out there worrying about this, but experiencing it first hand as I am it's on my mind a lot. I think we're losing the chance to be bored, recently. Being bored makes you seek out things to do to fill the void, but there's no need to be seeking anymore when you just have to dick around on a touch screen for a second or two.
As I mentioned ages ago, I've been recommitting to various hobbies, with the goal of practicing all of them (art, guitar, trombone) for at least a half hour every day, ideally an hour. I've been doing pretty well at keeping up with this, but one thing I've noticed is that, compared to zoning out on Facebook or various stupid games like Angry Birds or whatever, doing these things is really mentally taxing. Picking up any of them requires more than a click, and while I'm doing them I can't really multitask and flit between windows like the internet has accustomed me to doing. So it's a challenge. It's not a challenge I plan on giving up, but a less masochistic person might have.
Which makes me think that as a species we're really killing the quality of our leisure time. Most of my friends were kids before the internet's prevalence, so it's probably easier to stay dedicated to a hobby you've been doing for as long as you can remember. But it's so easy to be passively entertained these days that I wonder about the rates of kids that are opting for that brand of mental fast food instead of taking up guitar, or drawing, or whatever. I remember hauling a sketchbook around me as a kid for hospital waiting rooms, and playing my instrument on weekday afternoons because there was nothing better to be doing, but if you'd have thrown a smartphone at me I'd have been all over that shit, I'm sure. In fact my long break from my hobbies was started by getting too wrapped up in stuff online.
Not rocket science and I'm sure there are a lot of people smarter than I am out there worrying about this, but experiencing it first hand as I am it's on my mind a lot. I think we're losing the chance to be bored, recently. Being bored makes you seek out things to do to fill the void, but there's no need to be seeking anymore when you just have to dick around on a touch screen for a second or two.