The Digital Dilemma

I'm staring at a blank screen with nothing coming to mind. I have to get this right, because I only have two pieces of paper left. No room for error. Thank the Almighty that I can edit before I print. Although that doesn't always matter, because inevitably I, or Susan, will find something that I, or spell check, missed. I try to fix it right away, so that hopefully you won't notice, but I always keep a hard copy, and that means additional pieces of paper. I hate wasting paper. I hate wasting just about anything. Except of course time, and brain cells. I seem to have no problem wasting them. Even before I began this, I had a good amount of time to complete it. But YouTube, and it's d*mn recommendations, got me watching stuff I didn't really need to watch. I did laugh though, so that's something. It kind of freaks me out how they are able to track what kinds of things you have looked up before. I have to admit, I do not always sign in to YouTube to search for things. I guess I can say I usually do not sign in to watch, or listen, to stuff. But, it seems to have several suggestions very close to things I've already looked up. Freaky! I guess I'm still a bit of a technological neophyte. It makes me wonder if I should be more careful about what I decide to look at. Although, I never really look at anything that bad, it still freaks me out that they know. I had a really hard time deciding what album to listen to today, and their suggestions didn't help one bit. It actually made it a little tougher.

I keep meaning to make a list of things that I want to listen to, but, for one reason or another, I continue to not do it. Considering how many lists I make, it seems a bit bizarre that I have not accumulated this listening list yet. I keep having ideas, and think I should write them down, but it just doesn't happen. Then I put myself on the spot, where I have to decided at the very moment, when recently, I don't have the extra time to sit thinking. Today, I actually had a bit of a cushion, but then thanks to my wandering eye, I wasted time watching things that aren't going to help me get this done. Furthermore, I already had no idea whatsoever, about what to write. So wasting my time on stupid YouTube videos was not really a productive way to get things started. I keep telling myself to write first. I can check my email, and watch all the videos I want when I'm done. But usually, by the time I'm done doing this, the last thing I want to do is spend more time sitting here. I'm not really sure how people sit at a computer all day long. More than an hour or so, and I can't stand it. I still have a hard time believing that this is how a lot of people spend their time. Not only on an actual computer, but on their computer devices. So many people are constantly looking down at their phones, and such, that I'm worried in the future we'll all be some kind of hunch backs. It reminds me of something my wrestling coach used to say: “Real men keep their heads up, only losers look down.” He was talking about walking, but still.

It's kind of funny, because as the world goes more and more towards digital everything, I find myself going the other way. Granted, I have come to appreciate the mechanism by which this is done. Switching to a digital recording device, for my band, has changed things completely, for the better. I do see a benefit to certain technological advances. But at the same time, I believe it's actually crippling us socially. Sure people are in more constant contact with one another now, than they've ever been before. At the same time though, it seems that actual interpersonal communication is taking a back seat to electronic communication. I don't see how this can be good. Now I find myself wanting to have real conversations with people. I've always been a conversationalist, but now it's on overdrive. I want to actually talk to people. I make sure to make eye contact with people now. As a tall person, I've always made a joke about eye contact being a choice I can make. Well, I make that choice now. It is becoming very important to me to communicate effectively. I've always wanted to communicate well, but now it's different. I want people to know that I am not one of these zombies walking around with digital tunnel vision. I am a real person, with real thoughts, and real ideas, and really want to be spending time with the people that I am deciding to spend my time with. I've never really been a go with the flow type, and I just hope that there are more people out there, resisting the digital dilemma.

Daughn