I've gotten sidetracked.
Every day, I check the latest birdemic report from the Ministry for the Criminally Insane: How many birdemic-attributed deaths today? How many peck deaths? I put the numbers into my spreadsheet and see that, yes, we're still on course for peck deaths to eclipse birdemic deaths sometime in October. And then what -- I win? With facts and logic? Is that anticipated statistic supposed to be the one weird factoid that will prove I was right all along, and undelude the deluded? It's meaningless. Of course it just takes a minute or two of my time every day -- but when checking the latest lies, and engaging however fleetingly with the Liararchy-approved list of Very Important Distractions, has become part of my daily routine, that has spiritual effects that go far beyond the matter of wasted time.
The other bad habit I've acquired is checking the Anonymous Conservative blog every day -- and I do mean every day. The guy posts a few dozen links a day, but all at once, at an unpredictable time -- so I check, and then check again, and then check again, and then there it is! My daily schmear. There's a scene in Communion where Whitley, after a night of terrifying encounters with otherworldly entities, comes down to the breakfast table and is reassured by the smell of coffee and waffles, the smiling faces, and the fact that "the Times was as thick as ever," and that's exactly the feeling. I have, by a commodious vicus of recirculation, come back to the level of some upwardly-mobile New Yorker salivating over the Times.
So I'm taking a break from all that -- politics, the birdemic, the apricot tree -- and trying to redirect my attentions to what is real and what matters.
5 comments:
"So I'm taking a break from all that -- politics, the birdemic, the apricot tree -- and trying to redirect my attentions to what is real and what matters."
This is a decision you're unlikely to regret.
Owen Benjamin has a theory that engaging in the negative side (e.g. actively fighting the evil) is somehow necessary to charge the battery - or for evil to progress. So, for example, he says “I’m not anti-peck, I just make fun of it and try to ignore it”
I don’t know, but it might have some merit. I do feel “drained” after engaging too much with the concocted debate. It does feel like evil wants to take our attention up in this nonsense that shouldn’t exist at all, that is beneath us.
I said that wrong. It’s not really actively fighting so much as becoming engaged in.
Since discovering this circle of writers, I've significantly reduced the amount of time spent online, keeping up on news and politics, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or engaging in social media. I don't feel I'm missing out on anything.
I check this blog daily and greatly appreciate your thoughts, William.
Thanks, David. I've also greatly reduced the amount of time I spend on "news" -- I mean, I used to literally read the NYT every day! -- but I'm afraid I've been backsliding.
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