Rambling Rhodes

Overload

One of the numerous disadvantages of having a desk job--in addition to the lack of exercise and mind-numbing sensory deprivation of not having a window--is that you just get too caught up on current events.

You wouldn't think that's a bad thing, but it kind of is, because I find myself developing opinions on things that have practically no bearing whatsoever on my existence.

Why, for example, should I trouble myself and waste perfectly good neurons on anything remotely related to the daily goings-on of Britney Spears? Why would I care what Kanye West has to say about anything? So what if Katie Holmes is having Tom Cruise's child? And yet I find myself clicking on and reading such stories.

And then there's politics. If there's one thing that's become crystal clear to me over the past couple years, it's that politics have become almost a religion for a LOT of people. Mostly people who are online. And a LOT of those people take themselves entirely too seriously.

So it's been lately that I find myself at work, with about eight work-related programs running, from Word Pro, to Lotus Notes, to Adobe and several SameTime and MSN windows, and about three Internet Explorer windows open to varying pages ranging from popular nonsense like TomKat to MSNBC.com news, to political pages like Instapundit and Daily Kos and the infinite flame wars on Fark.com.

And, the thing I'm finding is, I'm not sure all this electronic information flow is all that good for me. I almost feel unhealthy at the end of any given work day. Granted, part of that is the sedentary lifestyle of the office workplace, even though I sneak a few sets of push-ups when I'm alone in my office.

It's just too much, quite frankly. And I find that it's not simply a matter of "not tuning in," because the temptation of having the world of information at my fingertips is just too great, and if I didn't have it I imagine work would be that much more unbearable.

Still, at the end of the day, I have about eight million things going through my head, none of which is all that useful. None of which give me the skills I need to remodel my basement, or re-grout the soap dish I accidently yanked out of the bathroom wall last week. In other words, despite all this information I'm privvy to, I don't think I'm becoming all that much better of a person. I'm just kind of sitting here, wasting away, absorbing gobs of online information that, when I boil it down, is basically just garbage to me, personally.

I sometimes find myself driving home after work, and I'll see construction crews working on the highway project through town, and I'll think "you know, that really doesn't look all that bad." At least they're outside. At least they're doing work that seems more tangible than most of the stuff I do. At least their thoughts are probably more focused on their own lives, rather than on Karl Rove's role in the Valerie Plame "scandal," or whether Jessica Simpson is back on the market.

Sometimes, I think my mind really starts screaming at me that I need some kind of change. A new job? A new hobby? Less Internet? I don't know. But, SOMETHING has to change. I don't know how to describe exactly how I feel. Overloaded? Broken?

Something along those lines.

Posted by Ryan at October 12, 2005 01:49 PM | TrackBack