Told you I have an addiction. I haven't revisited this blog in a week because I became distracted. I found out all of season 5 of Futurama was now on Netflix streaming, I watched all the episodes in two sittings over two nights. Yes, about 7 hours in two sittings in the evening over two days. What else did I do with my evening? I can't really remember. I think that there was some cooking at some point but I'm not sure. I know I got up to go smoke, that's clearly apparent as I have had to buy more cigarettes. Yep, another addiction.
I spent the rest of the week playing my MMO, for something on the order of about 14 hours this weekend. Monday I spent an inappropriate amount of money on a new Android phone, so as to have access to things I couldn't at work...meaning YouTube videos. This of course means that I will probably be borrowing money again at the end of the month from my friends just to eat and put gas in my car. I got into more debates on Reddit, that's no surprise.
Let me explain to you why I debate on the internet now so we don't have to revisit it later on, though I'm sure we will.
I spent most of my youth (yes, I'm 33 and call it my youth) studying politics, warfare, military history, history in general, archaeology, anthropology, nuclear warfare (I consider this seperate from military stuff as it's practically is a study in national insanity), and other topics that aren't really great cocktail conversations on the patio. I would go so far as to call my prefered subjects of studies, "downers." Yet, I love them. Nothing will get a rise out of me like a heated debate about the Constitution, the history of the Revolution and the nations foundations, military policy, global politics, or anything of it's kind. When someone asks me about it, I perk up and I jabber on and on, incessantly until someone has to force the conversation away. You know how some people talk to themselves in the mirror? I do that, but I'm actually giving lengthy lectures about the recent recession, or the current wars, and on and on.
The problem here is though, no one really brings that up around me. I'm sure if I worked for a think tank, or was still in the army, or was a college student or professor, I would be talking about this with many peers and colleagues, but there is no one. So I go to the internet. On the internet, I can have my opinions validated, debated, I can share what I know, "school" someone in a subject I know better than them, and so on. I love to share the conversation with my friends who tease me about it, but I persist. Why? It's the only place I can feel like I have something to say and people will listen.
I think that's important to a lot of people. They want to be heard. Not listened to, but heard. They want someone to validate their existence, feelings, and thoughts. However in this world that we have created, if you can't say it in two sentences that are controversial, or packaged right, no one will hear you. Those precious few people who listen to you are like treasures to be hoarded like a leprechauns treasure. They are just so hard to find though. We are to busy with the next RSS feed, the next sound clip, the new top 40, the new blog post, the new tweet with nothing relevant said, to actually stop to listen. Every one of us knows someone who constantly has their Borg implants in, those blue tooth headsets crammed in their ear to catch that next great call or perhaps those white sensory deprivation buds we cram in our ears, those artificial barriers that even 30 years ago were rare enough to force conversation, "Say man, what is that thing?!" Now we ignore it. We can even be sitting down with friends or loved ones to eat at a restaurant and while you are sharing details of a great real world experience, they are checking into foursquare and giving that answer we perfected speaking to our parents in our teens, "Uh huh."
I complain so vociferously about this because, well, that's me. Not in the sense of the friend at dinner buried in their cell phone, but in the larger sense of that is how I live my life. I go to my computer and, "Uh huh," life. I think that is how a lot of addictions work. It's a way of avoiding paying attention to life. You bury yourself in distractions so that you don't have to face the harder challenges of having to be hurt by other people, have to feel a connection to other people, to feel validated, to feel good, to seek refuge.
Mine is here on the internet, attempting to connect to people through something you really can't connect with people through.
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