Saturday, April 9, 2011

Duluth, Disconnection, and some Poo

So I've found myself searching a bit on this particular tour with a good way to spend the day. I will start by saying I realize how incredibly lame and pretentious that even sounds in the first place. I'm literally living out my dreams of childhood, roaming the world with my best friends, playing music for people, with very little obligation other than to enjoy the ride.
How hard can that be?

Well, even though I am riddled with blissful moments on tour, I am also only human. I get bored. But... I have a scary theory: I think I'm getting bored-er.
Let me explain.
I'm not the first person to make a correlation between disappearing attention spans and the advent of our internet-driven culture and community. I will speak only for myself, but I'm obsessed with Twitter, and most recently this blog. I check emails incessantly, and text messages too. Phone calls now almost feel archaic, as if listening to someone's voice is just simply TOO MUCH WORK. My mind is consumed with how to translate and expose every thought via the web. The real-time revelation just isn't good enough anymore. If, during the day, I have some sort of experience or thought that I deem important, it's a race to get it tweeted or emailed or blogged about. Somehow I've convinced myself that it's not impactful unless somebody else sees it.

I read an awesome article by Patton Oswalt this morning in the Wall Street Journal.
http://on.wsj.com/g0s9aj
He's brilliant and funny. One of my favorites.
He thinks he's fat too, but I disagree. Moving on.
It's all about how intoxicated we are by our little devices that keep us "connected". Many of us start to panic without the hand holding of our ipods, ipads, iphones, blackberry, etc. We freak out if we don't have an electronic umbilical cord keeping us fed.
It's scary, and I'm finally starting to wake up.
The more "connected" I get, the more disconnected I really feel to the world around me.
I don't have the answers, and I'm not passing judgement, I'm just hypothesizing on whether or not I'm forming habits that will enrich my life in the long run....
You know, like crack. Something worthwhile.

This is my electronic, Internet-communicated promise to try to disconnect more often and have more experiences that I document and share via the web, to prove that I don't spend as much time on the Internet.

xo
s

Javier, Daniel and I "disconnected" for a while today.
(Video courtesy of my Blackberry. Don't think I don't taste the irony.)
It's not Shakespeare, people. but it's a start.