Tag Archives: interest

The happy dream of the future…

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It’s another day after an extended weekend and another day where I have very little on my mind. Spending a maximum amount of time at home tending the yard, tending the animals, sunk deeply into a book, or just generally avoiding people is clearly good for calming my brain even at the cost of having anything scathing to write about. It’s probably worth the trade off.

Before giving a mighty shrug of indifference I considered a number of topics for today – North Korea, border security, Starbucks, social media, and a few others. It really comes down to not being able to gin up much of an interest in any of them. That might be when the real truth hit me – although I have a passing interest in wide swath of topic areas, there are only a handful I actually give a damn about on a regular basis. That number gets even smaller when you whittle the time down to any individual day.

That’s all a round about way of saying that when it comes right down to it, I simply lack the bandwidth or interest to care about most issues. I don’t and won’t judge someone for what they choose to care about, but I’ll save my outrage and effort for the ones that are important to me. It’s not personal, just the reality of having limited time and resources and wanting to allocate them in a way that best serves my own interests.

There is something deeply appealing to me about pulling up the drawbridge and applying the focusing exclusively on whatever is of interest in the moment. That version of my reality is a number of years off yet, but it’s the happy dream of the future that sustains me.

Playing with balls…

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The internet has given us a world where information is hard to escape unless you really make an effort at it. Most days I find myself absorbing as many audio and visual signals as I can stand. Usually those feeds are clogged with finance, history, science, politics, and a bit of local news. Today it’s just chock full of the NCAA basketball championship and opening day of baseball season.

While I’m not actively taking any steps to avoid those things, my level of interest can best be expressed by a long, gaping mouthed yawn. It’s not that I hate sports in general. I don’t spend nearly enough thinking about them to be that bothered. I’d describe my attitude towards them as one of abject disinterest.

That disinterest carries the day most of the time – except on days like today. When everyone assumes everyone is a fan of something and every conversation turns on the Local Professional Baseball Team or Collegiate Basketball Program of Choice. On days like today, my disinterest is elevated to something more monumental in scope and scale.

Despite that, mostly I smile and nod at what feels like appropriate intervals… because being in polite society implies that you’ll spend a great deal of time listening to things in which you have no interest. The fact is, in addition to the lack of interest, I lack the specialized vocabulary and background information to speak on the subject in any intelligent way. I can only assume that since so many seem determined to live and die with their team, there must be something to it. I realize that in this one case, perhaps I’m the one who’s the extreme outlier – though that may just be part and parcel of my long standing personal feud with major social conventions. Regardless of the why, however, it’s simply that the part of a fan’s brain that gets tickled by a grand slam or a long three point shot, doesn’t get my neurons sparking in the same way.

I almost wish it did… if for no other reason than it would make these “big days in sports” feel a little less torturous than a slow death by a thousand cuts.

The number two thousand…

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The earliest post I’ve been able to track down showed up on June 1, 2006. There were some earlier efforts, I’m almost sure, but my own records only go back that far. If there are earlier posts out there somewhere, I’ve lost them to the electronic ether.

Nine years and 1,999 posts later we arrive at my 2,000th post. I’m not sure if that means I have too much to say, too much free time, or too much nascent desire for attention. A combination of the three is the most likely reason I’ve stuck with it this long. For whatever reasons, while other hobbies and interests have come and gone, the blog, in all its many forms has remained a consistent part of my life. At this point I’m not sure how I would self-identify without it.

It’s been tempting over the years to monetize the effort, to sell my services to other sites, or even to give it up completely, but obviously none of those ideas ever stuck. For these last 2,000 posts I’ve always been writing about whatever happened to be on my mind. It’s always been writing to sooth my own soul and to suit my own sensibilities.

Like it says up there in “About” at the top of the site:

Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning: I’m not a regular guy. I don’t spend all weekend watching sports and I think domestic beer, for the most part, sucks. I’m never going to discuss how much I can bench press or how big my engine is. What I will do is comment on those issues that strike my interest on any given day including but not limited to travel, politics, technology and life’s unavoidable interaction with stupid people. Some posts will be mundane others will be rants of a more epic variety. I strive to keep it entertaining, but in the end I’m writing for my own benefit, not for an audience. If you’re waiting for a big finish, there isn’t one. This is what it is.

Maybe that’ll change at some point in the future, but I suspect you’ll hear much the same thing in 2024 when we’re talking about the 4,000th post.

Blank space…

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Usually by the time I get home at the end of the day I’ve got half a dozen post its or a few hastily scribbled margin notes to remind myself about whatever blogworthy ideas I had during the course of the day. Yeah, I’ve long since given up the illusion that I can remember something that happened at 8AM when I sit down to write ten hours later.

It didn’t happen today. Not one single note anywhere. Plenty happened, of course, just nothing that I would consider even marginally entertaining… and certainly not something I’d want to relive for 30 or 45 minutes this evening. What I’m saying is that tonight I’ve got nothing. Just wide open blank space where a blog ought to be.

I’m honestly surprised it doesn’t happen more often. Even surrounded by the best topics, some nights it just doesn’t happen. Missouri is burning again. A card carrying socialist is drawing 25,000 people to his political rallies. China devalued its currency. The EPA just dumped millions of gallons of toxic waste water into a clear mountain river. The state of Alabama is the subject of a Go Fund Me campaign. There’s plenty enough going on that seems worth commenting on.

Any one of those issues would chew up 300 words without looking back and yet even while I sit here, just naming the jackassery in the air today makes me exhausted. It’s not so much that I don’t care as that I’m too annoyed by what passes for civilization to even be bothered to comment. All I really want to do is shut down, pull a cork, and settle in with a good book. It’s not one of my finer or more engaged moments, but it’s the fact of the matter.

Maybe tomorrow it will matter, but for tonight I just can’t be bothered enough to give a damn.

The illusion of interest…

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I could probably fill a book with number of bits and pieces of daily ephemera I declare “one of the hardest things I do.” Somehow that doesn’t keep the list from growing. In that spirit, one of the hardest things I do currently is simply pay attention. Actually it’s not even that so much as it is just trying to look interested.

Once the charts start flipping, I’ve got a window of 20-30 good minutes where I’m attentive and focused. After that it’s a doodle-fest or I start making notes on whatever it is I would be working on back at my desk. Either way, whatever is on those slides is barely getting a head nod. I’m basically doing whatever it takes to keep my eyes from glazing over and accidentally falling out of my chair. Nodding off and landing on your ass is considered bad form at meetings. I’ve seen it happen and it’s not pretty – although it is completely, gut wrenchingly hysterical.

The challenge to look interested doesn’t discriminate between my own material and stuff that has no impact or influence on my day-to-day existence. After the 30 minute mark everything falls into the category of probably interesting, but irrelevant. It’s not irrelevant by nature, but simply because my brain has lost the capacity to receive new information while struggling mightily just to give the illusion that the lights are on upstairs.

If you see me in a meeting blinking rapidly, shifting in my seat every 30 seconds, or jabbing a #2 pencil into my thigh, try not to take it personally. It’s probably not your subject matter, it’s just that you let your meeting run way, way too long and I’m doing my level best to offer the illusion of interest or, if that proves impossible, to not fall asleep and start drooling all over myself.

My next fix…

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Usually I sit down at the computer with at least a vague notion of what’s going to end up on the screen. It should be something heavy, but not too bleak. Something entertaining, but not too frivolous. It should be witty, but not comical. None of those are hard and fast rules, of course. They’re more like selectively enforced guidelines. Since on any given day what’s going to end up online is up in the air right up until the last minute, I find it best to have very few hard and fast rules. All they tend to do is get in the way of posting something halfway interesting.

Even disregarding the guidelines, I’ve had some trouble today focusing in on what I wanted to say this evening. There were plenty of news articles that I could justifiably talk about. The office? Sure, it’s full of ridiculous things that would be easy enough to spell out in 300 words. The Fortress of Solitude? There’s always something dinging around that I can make sound new and noteworthy. Still, none of those struck a chord today. Nothing stood out screaming “write about me right the hell now.” Most days by the time I get home I’ve got two or three ideas in the running. Days like today, it’s like the theme is just grinding it out, jamming one foot ahead of the next, and getting through to the end.

It’s the kind of day that makes a guy appreciative of the other days – the ones where things go like butter, the words fly onto the page by their own accord, and you’ve got some spark of life left when the lights go out. Three-day weekends, man they mess with the routine. A holiday weekend is a great thing, but getting back makes me feel like a junkie coming down. There’s plenty going on around me, but all I’m really thinking about is where I’m going to find my next fix.