If you absolutely need more chesapeake in your life, you should subscribe to my youtube channel. Head shaving, Facebook bashing-it’s all on there.
Or if you’ve reached my blog on your daily quest to reach the End of the Internet, then please turn off your computer and go peek at the outside world. You owe it to yourself. And I’ll be here when you return.
The best advice I’ve ever received is keep moving. While Casey and I have taken this quite literally in our first year of marriage, it works metaphorically. Don’t know what to do? Keep moving. Try something new. Keep everything moving forward as best as you possibly can. Don’t stop. Keep going.
Unless of course, you need to stop. Because that’s important, too. Ah, the perils of cliched advice.
Was then. Is even more so now.
Albuquerque, NM. October 2010.
Written March 7, 2012.
I’ve now read 9 books since the last week of January. Nine books. Three this month already.
It’s been 3 weeks ago tomorrow that I stopped reading blogs. It’s funny because being online all day makes the day go by quickly but the weeks slowly. Now the days go by slowly and the weeks quickly. Rapidly. I can’t believe how quickly, actually. It’s better this way, I’m sure. The day is purposeful and more focused, I’m in the moment as much as I can be at this point in my journey, and most importantly I don’t feel so much like my head is exploding in sixty different directions. I’m reading and writing like crazy. It turns out my genius visits me more often when I’m not sticking a screen in front of my face all day long.
I don’t think about blogs very often any more. The first day I posted about this, the awesome Laura left a comment speaking of how blogs weren’t bad. They aren’t! I mean…I have a blog. I’m posting all of this on a blog after all. And I certainly don’t want to push people away from this space. With one caveat: if being on here means that you’re avoiding your own life consistently, then I don’t want you here. If you find inspiration or entertainment within the pages of my tiny portion of the Internet, by all means, welcome. I simply had to curtail my blog reading because I felt it was out of control. It’s like how I don’t usually drink alcohol. I don’t like how it makes me feel. I don’t like how I feel and act when I’m ingesting it.
The same goes for content online. I have been inspired by blogs, and I do occasionally miss those. I may go back to reading one or two, but not yet. I don’t trust myself yet, and besides, I have too many other sources to really need to read them. I have Ravelry, which I’ve been putting to great and productive use in the last three weeks, gathering patterns seriously and beginning new projects.
I should also mention, too that the ramblings of the last two weeks on this blog are part of an experiment I’m doing for myself, wherein I write write write every single day. And then I post it. Life is about momentum. I want to produce produce produce and see what comes out of it. This is for me. If you enjoy it, then all the better.
Momo’s. Austin, TX. November 2010.
Written February 28th, 2010
I think it’s the Glow.
It’s a tractor beam, pulling you in. I said yesterday that I no longer had urges to check blogs; this is true, largely speaking. Except for when I’m actually online, browser-open. Then I get this drowsy feeling over me, and I just have to keep reading and checking. Reading and checking. But I haven’t. Because as my best friend once told me, “You’re probably the only person I know in the world who doesn’t need an accountability partner. You just do things.”
Another thing I’ve noticed is that the more time I spend off my computer, the more difficult it is for me to look at the computer screen. I’m blinking a lot more, and find it hard to read words on it as easily as on paper or even on my ‘ancient,’ first-generation Kindle (recently refreshed, cleaned, recharged, and reloaded with new content). The screen is hard to actually look at now.
We watched Pirates of Silicon Valley last night. It was interesting and entertaining. Noah Wyle was fantastic, so was that kid from Sixteen Candles (just kidding, Anthony Michael Hall; I know who you are. You’re Farmer Ted.) I’ve read enough Apple literature to know that certain things were definitely dramatized for the sake of compelling movie-watching, but it is always cool to get a picture to put to the words of what computers looked like pre and post Apple. It’s hard for someone my age to fully comprehend the existence or even the purpose of a computer that didn’t have a screen. It really doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Such is the power of change. A complete paradigm shift of “Of course the world is round; how could anyone have seen it any other way?” A computer without a screen? Without a mouse? Without a keyboard? What kind of joke is that? What does a computer like that even do? What possible application could it have? It seems far less practically functional than a typewriter.
Me and Gus and Casey. Texas. August 2010
Written February 27th, 2012.
I didn’t check my email at all yesterday. I couldn’t. I was busy. And yet. Not busy. Just living. It was lovely.
My mom gave me a sketchbook a few weeks ago, one she wasn’t going to use. In it, I listed out a Table of Contents of big goals for 2012. Then I dedicated one or two or three pages to each goal, for it to be documented in watercolor and ink, for me to keep track of in pictures and in words. A visual journal of this year.
I used to read book. Many, many books. Then the Internet happened and college happened, and it was no longer a priority for me. But I had this feeling that it needed to be; books and words are such a part of who I choose to be. So I set my goal this year of reading one book a month, figuring if I blew past it great; it I failed, then that would mean I really didn’t even try at all. One book a month is hardly anything. I could read one chapter a day of each Harry Potter book before bed and still have read all 7 books by early July without really trying.
When I wrote that goal down at the end of January, I’d read one book, a book I’d only managed to read because I didn’t have an iPod touch blinking up at me. The next day, I read another one. Then nothing. Then I stopped reading blogs, and as of today, February 27th? I’ve read three books (two in the last 5 days) and am halfway through another one already. I started writing the actual day-date I finish each book instead of just the month in my journal, a specificity begging itself to be lent to the paper as my time between closing chapters becomes increasingly smaller. I’m nearly halfway done with my goal of 12 books in 2012 and February hasn’t breathed its last goodbye yet.
I officially have no desire to read any blogs. Eleven days out. That’s all it took for me to become more interested in myself and my thoughts and my life over other people’s. I’ve read no news sites, no celebrity sites, no weather sites. I’ve read The Economist (paper edition) and Bloomberg Business Week. I think I’m more than up to date on the general state of the world than I ever was endlessly refreshing HuffPo for the latest fear-mongering or drama-fueling headline that would sell more ad space. When words sit in ink and not behind pixels, they usually have been carefully crafted. The event has had time to grow a bit of perspective. There are fewer false updates and leads when the news cannot be published instantly. It’s a bit more sanity in an increasingly insane world.
It’s a welcome change.
August 2010. Texas.
Written February 22nd, 2012
I stopped checking the temperature and weather forecasts. Instead, I’ve rolled with the temperatures, merely checking out the window to see what it’s like outside, or actually going outside to feel the temperature. I have no expectations for cloudiness, sunniness, warmness, coldness, or anything at all. I just am.
I think what I thought was seasonal affective disorder my whole life does not actually exist within me.
I take the day as it comes with no expectations, which means I cannot actually be disappointed. Had I known that all I needed to do to stop worrying about the weather’s effect on my mental state was to simply stop checking the forecast? It would have saved me quite a bit of heartache over the past five years.
Casey and I just returned from an hour long walk during which we discussed many things; mostly technology-related things. It was lovely. We’re getting rid of our smart phones. I am so excited.
Enchanted Rock. July 4, 2010.
Written February 21, 2012.
After reading The Economist and a memoir these last few days, I realize that for all of the millions of words I have undoubtedly read over the last six years online, not very many of them were intelligent, smart, well-culled and curated. So much information was just a repeat of something else, so many people write at a middle-school level; this isn’t a criticism, but more of a realization of where I’ve been spending most of my time. I’m not getting much smarter reading the Internet. I could be getting smarter reading books: edited books. With proper punctuation and grammar and a story arc and actual, tangible research.
There is little marinating time with blogs and most things published on the internet. Sometimes this is a great thing (I am writing to you now, of course). You can write about something that happened ten minutes ago. But there’s also no reflection, no wisdom of the years to push words into more well-meaning sentences and perspectives. That’s just it; there is little to no perspective. How can there be? It just happened.
The other great part of reading books instead of online words is that there’s no comments section. Same goes for reading The Economist. No Facebook login and people typing hateful, racist, incendiary comments in each section. No HuffPo moderators. Just me, the page, my own thoughts focused on what’s in front of me. No “most popular articles” on the side (which are invariably regarding celebrities).
(Can I also say how much I hate that TextEdit knows to automatically capitalize Facebook when I type it out? Why the hell is that? How did that happen? Who coded that?)
I told Casey I could not shake this image of all of us human sitting in front of screens with wires and plugs willfully inserting themselves into our brains and bloodstream, and out comes the data and our thoughts and hopes and dreams and opinions and life into the great machine. It’s a frightening image.
The Tower. June 2010. San Antonio, TX.
written february 20th 2012
I’ve reached the stage of detox where my brain is loudly screaming: Just try one!!! And my other brain is going “NO. No. NO.” And then my brain switches to “Why is blog reading so bad? It really isn’t, is it? There’s nothing inherently wrong with blogs.” There is nothing inherently wrong with reading blogs, of course. It’s just that I need to be living my life, and I haven’t been doing that incredibly well.
It’s like this debate is raging. It’s insane. INSANITY. It’s growing louder. I have a book with me. A pack of cards. This textedit document. And knitting. At all times.
I’m also on a quest to reduce my Internet information sprawl, and it’s a little overwhelming. I deleted old blogs, deactivated parts of my Google Data Monster, and unsubscribed from email lists. I spent an hour today writing out a list of websites that I’ve signed up for, like shopping ones. I’m less concerned with using (I don’t do a lot of online shopping anymore) and more concerned with where my information is sitting. I want to encourage everyone to think twice before blindly signing up for these places, because they aren’t easy to leave. Anthropologie, Modcloth, and Elance have no “delete account” button. I had to email all of them (Anthro responded almost instantly, Elance within and hour, and I’m still waiting to hear from Modcloth) so they could do it for me. If you find a site that doesn’t have a “Delete account” button, don’t just give up. Email them. Be persistent.
Amazing how easy it is to click “sign up” compared how hard it is to disentangle your information from the, well. Web. The easiest service so far? Mailchimp. I’d love to thank them right now. Thank you, Mailchimp, for not being like everyone else. Your product was insanely confusing, but at least I got out of it with no fuss or problem from you.
Written February 19th
We watched Macheads the other night. It was a movie filled with people I could have identified with at another time in my life. Granted, I wasn’t attending user groups nor do I have any kind of memory of using computers that didn’t have GUI pictures instead of command line words on them. But the general idea and feeling that Apple was not only a brand, but a beloved group of people striving toward a world of gorgeously built and interfaced computers. It did seem like a bit of a cult. I wrote poems about my first iPod, I evangelized at every corner. I watched ever keynote Steve Jobs gave. I would go onto the Apple website on Tuesdays to check for new store updates. I would routinely build $20,000 dream computers on Apple’s website and keep them in an imaginary shopping cart. I read Apple books and biographies. I knew the history.
Then the iPhone came out, and something seemed to change. Suddenly the iTunes music store became completely bloated with apps and games and movies. Music took a backseat. Computers took a backseat at the company as well. After watching Macheads, I realized that I was not alone in my growing feeling of disillusionment. But the difference between me and the Macheads interviewed? I moved on as best as I could. I accepted that Apple, at its heart, was nothing more than a company. And it never was more than that. The emotion surrounding it was added by the loyal group of fans, it was encouraged by a company seeking to not have to file bankruptcy. Now that Apple is arguably the most successful corporation on the planet, the early adopters feel left behind. I get it. But I also get that it’s just technology. Produced in factories by people who deserve more human decency than they are currently receiving.
Another interesting facet to the movie was the discussion on in-person communities and user groups. Pre-internet (or, pre-widespread internet), user groups met all over the world to discuss how to use Apple products. Now? People just google for that information. It’s fast and easy. But there’s the inarguable loss of that randomness. Of learning something you might not even think to search. It’s kind of like sat nav in cars and phones: how many people get lost for the hell of it anymore and stumble across a part of town or a park or an amazing coffee shop or bookstore they didn’t know existed? If we always know exactly where we are going, what happens to spontaneity? To stopping and asking for directions? To human interaction? What happens when we put our life on autopilot like that, never checking to make sure if where we said we wanted to go is where we still want to be going?