I may buy the hell out of this guy's book.
"For anyone who feels this Internet emptiness chewing at them, I would say, do a little test. Go outside and take a 15-minute walk — around the block, through the park, just a short walk. While you’re doing this, clear your mind of work and of home. Just look at things, birds and cars and trees and the clouds and buildings and dumpsters, and when you think of something internal just say “thinking” to yourself and go back to walking and breathing. Then return to your computer. Do the usual things you do on your computer, like check the news and your email and the blogs you read and whatever people post on Facebook and Twitter.
"Do this second part, the computer-looking-at, for just 15 minutes. You can set one of those web timers … hang on, I have one in my bookmarks.
"When this stopwatch beeps, honestly ask yourself how you feel. Compare this to how you felt at the end of your 15-minute walk. Ask yourself what, if anything, you learned during those 15 minutes of wasting time on the Internet. Did it help you in some way? Are you better off? This is a question often asked by political challengers: Are you better off than __ years ago? Well, are you better off than fifteen minutes ago? If not, don’t re-elect the Internet."
I fully realize the irony of blogging this.
We have posted about various things on Pragmatic Idealists, including academia, health care, politics, sports, and life in general. One thing is almost constant, though: we often try to tie things back to the challenge of living your ideals to the best of your ability in a complicated, difficult, weird world. This is so hard, right?
Children are our future. Okay, not all children. Just the children of PS22.
The colossal suckiness of air travel is well-documented. Not having boarded an airplane since October, and faced with the task of boarding four to six of them in the coming month, I would like to extol my experience in the past six months of NOT flying. A more accurate statement than "I hate flying" would be, "I truly appreciate and enjoy not flying."
It's not that I have not been traveling. I have been, and I love it. I revel in the prospect of boarding trains, cars, bikes, vespas, ferries. I like exploring new places with my own two feet. I'm sure I could even grow to love scooters.
There have not been horrible business trips to avoid, either. My last flight was to Rome, my recent trips were to places I really like, and my anticipated trips are to exciting places. I will even get to stay in these places for more than 12 hours - and while one trip is a business trip, it is a place I've never been before that I hear is pretty sweet. No, I am not here to praise a hiatus in crappy destinations.
My glee in avoiding planes is pretty simple. I really enjoy not having to worry about getting to a bus station three hours early. I delight in not being more than a few feet off the ground for more than a few minutes at a time on a train. I also love that my car smells exactly like I want it to, and that I get fresh air with the windows down in the taxi, and that when I walk, I can spin around, spread my arms out, do a dance routine with my umbrella and use all the space I need.
If there were a way to take anything but an airplane anywhere, at anytime, I would take it. For places more than 5 hours by train, my recommendation is that we give stimulus money to one of Bruce Wayne's start-ups to study the composition of Queen Frostine's magic wand, from Candyland. That wand was fantastic.
From this point forward, though, I shall suck it up like the rest of air-traveling America. They still have free meals on planes ... I think ...
How are we coming along on that wand?
In a post today, the NY Times blog City Room has a story about people cutting their cable and just watching things on the internet or using Netflix. As it turns out, E. and I did this just this week — and I have to say, standing in line at TimeWarner to return our cable box was one of the more pleasant experiences that I have had with TimeWarner. So far, we are pretty happy with the decision and I find myself with plenty to keep myself entertained. I guess that makes us far from the typical American (not
“There’s an endless fascination in talking about these people, but it’s a little more of the urban myth,” said Craig Moffett, who follows the cable industry at Sanford Bernstein. “The reality is there isn’t enough content on the Web to satisfy the average American consumer.”
(Although one has to wonder how there is
