scrubjayspeaks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scrubjayspeaks) wrote2019-12-29 02:26 pm
scrubjayspeaks) wrote2019-12-29 02:26 pm
Entry tags:
some inchoate thoughts on attention and free time
Warren Ellis linked to a post by Jay Springett on blogging and a return to the Age of Blogging and internet culture.
Meanwhile,![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snowflake_challenge is set to start again, inkingitout is apparently a thing, and allbingo has a cool thing happening for January.
These things happened to all get posted in a small enough window of time that I saw them in rapid succession on a Sunday morning. And of course, my response to this is, oh, dip, I gotta sign up for everything and blog more often!
Not an especially interesting or unusual response, since I always feel like I Ought To Be More Engaged. But it did occur to me that I always seem to feel this way around the new year. I began to notice a pattern, which is the best way to get my attention on anything anyway.
I wondered, is it a New Year's resolution sort of thing? I don't much care for those, and I've never done any big THIS IS THE YEAR type life restructuring. (Well. Not that panned out for more than an afternoon of idle planning, anyway.) So it seemed weird for that to be the source.
Then I realized that it's actually more about having time off from work. This year, I get actual vacation time. The last several years, I either left my job temporarily or at least had a very limited schedule. Leaves me with a lot of extra hours to fill, during a time of year when there's not a great deal to do around home. And since most shows and sites tend to scale back production during the holidays, I run through my usual sources of Prepackaged Entertainment pretty quick.
So I start reading again. Blogs. Communities. Individual people who say interesting things more complex than just reblogging another weird photoshoot or clever quote. The things that I never seem to have enough time to keep up with during other times of the year. And every time, I remember all the things I like about blogging and events and communities, and I start to crave that involvement again.
I've had an ongoing quest to figure out how to do more of the things I care about, despite now working more than full-time while chronically ill. Because I don't...like...the currents running through my brainspace sometimes? It's not that I object to any one thing that I, say, watch on a regular basis. It's the ratio, really. I don't like where I'm spending my attention, and I want to change it. But I'm not always clear on where the problem is. Or why it's a problem.
So I'm interested in this vacation phenomenon I've picked up on. The idea that a lot of stuff goes on hiatus and so I burn through all the new material and need to dig deeper to entertain myself--that feels important. Makes me think that I'm trying to keep up with too many things that update multiple times an hour--news, it's news, I dedicate way too many brain cycles to watching news lately.
Part of it is that I like things that I can tune out of without feeling like I'm missing out on important bits--background noise. Makes me feel like I have people around without needing to engage directly. I need to maybe find a less stressful source of background chatter, but not one that I'm deeply invested in following along with.
Part of it is that I like familiarity and being able to just get more of the same thing regularly. That's a problem if I need to read person X on Monday when they update, then read person Y on Tuesday, and so on. This may be in the category of Tough Shit--good and interesting individuals are not going to be able to single handedly give me the deluge I want. And anyway, their output usually requires more brain power, so a deluge will just leave me overwhelmed.
Tl;dr: I'm probably consuming too much small, soundbite-y media junk food for my brain. I probably need to find a way to go deeper for a little longer on fewer things. I probably need to find better background noise that I don't care about and can switch off with impunity. I'm probably not getting enough social stimulation from the right sources. I probably still want to be writing more than anything else, even if I don't know how to make that happen sometimes.
Meanwhile,
snowflake_challenge is set to start again, inkingitout is apparently a thing, and allbingo has a cool thing happening for January.These things happened to all get posted in a small enough window of time that I saw them in rapid succession on a Sunday morning. And of course, my response to this is, oh, dip, I gotta sign up for everything and blog more often!
Not an especially interesting or unusual response, since I always feel like I Ought To Be More Engaged. But it did occur to me that I always seem to feel this way around the new year. I began to notice a pattern, which is the best way to get my attention on anything anyway.
I wondered, is it a New Year's resolution sort of thing? I don't much care for those, and I've never done any big THIS IS THE YEAR type life restructuring. (Well. Not that panned out for more than an afternoon of idle planning, anyway.) So it seemed weird for that to be the source.
Then I realized that it's actually more about having time off from work. This year, I get actual vacation time. The last several years, I either left my job temporarily or at least had a very limited schedule. Leaves me with a lot of extra hours to fill, during a time of year when there's not a great deal to do around home. And since most shows and sites tend to scale back production during the holidays, I run through my usual sources of Prepackaged Entertainment pretty quick.
So I start reading again. Blogs. Communities. Individual people who say interesting things more complex than just reblogging another weird photoshoot or clever quote. The things that I never seem to have enough time to keep up with during other times of the year. And every time, I remember all the things I like about blogging and events and communities, and I start to crave that involvement again.
I've had an ongoing quest to figure out how to do more of the things I care about, despite now working more than full-time while chronically ill. Because I don't...like...the currents running through my brainspace sometimes? It's not that I object to any one thing that I, say, watch on a regular basis. It's the ratio, really. I don't like where I'm spending my attention, and I want to change it. But I'm not always clear on where the problem is. Or why it's a problem.
So I'm interested in this vacation phenomenon I've picked up on. The idea that a lot of stuff goes on hiatus and so I burn through all the new material and need to dig deeper to entertain myself--that feels important. Makes me think that I'm trying to keep up with too many things that update multiple times an hour--news, it's news, I dedicate way too many brain cycles to watching news lately.
Part of it is that I like things that I can tune out of without feeling like I'm missing out on important bits--background noise. Makes me feel like I have people around without needing to engage directly. I need to maybe find a less stressful source of background chatter, but not one that I'm deeply invested in following along with.
Part of it is that I like familiarity and being able to just get more of the same thing regularly. That's a problem if I need to read person X on Monday when they update, then read person Y on Tuesday, and so on. This may be in the category of Tough Shit--good and interesting individuals are not going to be able to single handedly give me the deluge I want. And anyway, their output usually requires more brain power, so a deluge will just leave me overwhelmed.
Tl;dr: I'm probably consuming too much small, soundbite-y media junk food for my brain. I probably need to find a way to go deeper for a little longer on fewer things. I probably need to find better background noise that I don't care about and can switch off with impunity. I'm probably not getting enough social stimulation from the right sources. I probably still want to be writing more than anything else, even if I don't know how to make that happen sometimes.