Introductory Entry-Stop Consuming.
"Consumption" isn't an evil by itself. There are days when I eat simply to not feel pain, avoid boredom, or out of ritual. But eating to survive all the time can become bland and terrible. Mohammad Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, used to boil bags of potatoes and scoop some out when he was hungry. That, to me, is the dangerous consumption. Yes, amounts are a problem, but someone who eats and drinks a great deal but enjoys it all is different than the person who digs at a potato mountain.
I worried that all the movies, books, video games, essays, and other things were scoops on a potato mountain.
The first time I had this worry was when I encountered students during the first day of school. There were the normal "Getting to Know You" activities that attempt to break students out of their shells, and those activities included discussions about hobbies. I found a lot of people claimed "Watching Netflix" was a hobby.
Not the things they watched. Just Netflix.
When I was a child, people included "Watching TV" as a hobby. While the passive consumption of entertainment wasn't ideal (no one was forced to watch television), people had no ability to curate or choose. Watching television was a series of yes/no decisions, and the expansion of cable retained the idea of "yes/no." Committed viewers could watch something later by recording it, but that was the only choice. Streaming web technologies were supposed to make us (more) active consumers, for we could choose from a large catalog of media.
New technology wasn't a utopia of infinite choice, but we could at least select choice morsels rather than deal with the shovel. I didn't blame students for saying, "Watch Netflix," but it made me think about media. Was I consuming it rather than enjoying it?
The second moment was when I read a book on the train. I realized how much time I spent on social media (which will be a post, I assure you) rather than reading something that grabbed my attention. I found that I remembered nothing from all the social media I watched. Forty minutes of time gone with no connection to anything. I watched a feed go by, and I did very little.
I decided enough was enough.
It was time to stop consuming and start thinking about what I was doing. I needed to consider what I was reading, playing, and watching. I needed to think of media less as a checklist and more as an experience. This blog will be an exploration of media that I've encountered.
The spelling and ideas won't be perfect. I don't expect them to be. The point is to think about what affects me, why it affects me, and to create something (even if it's only a blog).
