'Brief'

 

Derailed from plans day today. Washed the car to start with, as intended, but then largely meandered through the middle of it. In the evening the electricity went out for what turned out to be three hours. Batteries ran down fairly quickly thereafter which was a little annoying as there were plenty of things I could have worked on sans internet - stories perhaps, or some sort of blog post.

Instead I ended up reading for most of the duration, aided partly by a torch I keep in my backpack. Am not going to pretend this is some sort of salvation-from-technology miracle because it is not. Without even a reliable feeling source of illumination I felt trapped. But it certainly was useful - I'm supposed to finish this book, The Player of Games, for the bookclub by the end of the week and even now I am only halfway through having read a third of it tonight. Took plenty of notes on things to talk about when (if?) we have a group discussion on the novel.

It was very useful. The main frustration was not being able to transmit my thoughts at whoever whenever I'd a fancy too, which perhaps means overexposure to twitter. But it certainly did give me cause to reconsider what I want out of internet connectivity.

Recently I've been feeling simultaneously a desire to gain distance from social networks, partly from a feeling of unsafety and partly from a dismay at how much time is taken to keep up with them, yet also a desire to engage more vigorously, wanting to find and foster new friendships as a salve to my loneliness. Very conflicting.

People to be close with, yes. People to communicate and share with, yes. But I'd like to draw a metaphorical line somehow and put that to one side and use this computational contraption also as more of a working machine. A little more of a division where, yes, the connection is ever-present and contact available, but the mental split of mode between ~work, play and social. I liked the model described in The Player of Games where Gurgeh might devote a block of time to correspondence, another to working on some paper he was writing, the rest to whatever.

Normally as I've been trying to push myself in that direction I would draft any post locally before bringing up a site to post it on. This one's being an exception as I intended to just write a quick little update on my day. On account of how I am trying to be more social and make more of those sorts of updates.

I know there are various programs and extensions intended to help people out by blocking the internet to various degrees and specifications but I don't think those are what I am after. Or I don't want them to be. Rather work on my own ability to focus and set aside distraction not because that is somehow nobler or superior (nope), but because I don't want less of the one thing, I want to do more of the other. Which has perhaps the incidental effect of less of the one. Maybe I will need to use one of those tools anyway.

Thank you for listening to my ill-considered rambling. Perhaps someday it shall be turned into a more concise rambling.