Future Shock: Information Overload
by Will
I subscribe to podcasts from This American Life, Radio Lab, Kasper Hauser, They Might Be Giants and Elvis Costello — with dozens more waiting for me to simply click on “subscribe.” My friends are prolific video makers. Sitting beside my bed are books by David Mitchell, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Dickens and George Orwell. Also comics by Bryan K. Vaughn, Steve Ditko and Alan Moore. On my table are CDs by Buffalo Springfield, Prince and New Order, as well as a few mix CDs. I’m performing one sketch show and writing another. Netflix is sending me “Carnal Knowledge” and “An Inconvenient Truth” tomorrow. I’ve yet to watch any episodes of “The Wire,” “Battlestar Galactica” or any reality show starring or not starring Scott Baio.
You’re all going through similar things, I’m sure. So what do you do?
Unrelated:
- 200 Bad Comics — funny.
- My cat choked up a hairball the size of a mouse while sitting in front of me. It was like a monster movie — I thought for a second it was an alien crawling out of her mouth.
- One week until I see The Police.
Comments
You’ll have to send at least one of those movies back as it will be damaged. Recently, it seems only 1 out of 3 movies I receive are playable.
I have long ago given up hope that I will ever read anything by Borges. His books will merely rest on my shelf as false advertising of my tolerance for South American authors.
The Borges book I’m reading is called something like “The Book of Imaginary Beings” and is short, with pictures. I doubt I’d have the mental energy for an Actual Book.
Have a nice cup of tea with honey and a shot of brandy in it. Then, promptly pass out on your sofa. Do not spill the tea on the comics.
I pick out whatever it is that I want to do the most (usually a crossword puzzle) and then do something I think I should do (write a sketch, read a book, etc.) first. Then, as a reward for doing the thing I’m less excited about, I do the thing I’m most excited about. And then repeat that down the line.
That’s my plan, but usually I just end up doing tons of crossword puzzles in a row while watching tv or listening to music.
Also, my cats never or rarely have hairballs. That being said, I have never cleaned up a hairball without serious, near vomitting gagging.
I listen to a lot of podcasts during my commute and also during work when I am just spacing out and cranking out designs.
I have recently unpacked all my books and I realize I have a lot of things to read like “Epileptic”, Will Eisner’s Contract with God Trilogy, and Scott Cloud’s book about writing comics among others. I also have a copy of “Goedel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter. That will never been finished, though.
i would feel so overwhelmed… oddly enough, mostly by the stuff i had to listen to, because you CAN’T compress that, no matter what. i wonder if that one reason it takes me a long time to get into new music, i hate feeling the pressure to listen to it and get to know it.
and i don’t have any suggestions, your list just made me feel more stressed out.
Suggestion one: break plans for face-to-face time and stop sleeping for a couple of weeks. Then start consuming voraciously for several weeks.
Suggestion two: lower your expectations about what you can be expected to accomplish. Drop your Netflix subscription from three at a time to two at a time. Take half of what you intend to read, listen to, or watch and set it in an out-of-the-way place; take it out again in a few months and see whether you’re still interested; if so, put it back in the rotation. Start using the public library, but stop renewing and return everything on time.
Suggestion three: start arbitrarily hating a lot of the critically acclaimed. I have managed to completely avoid listening to Death Cab for Cutie and Arcade Fire by vehemently denying their talent.
Have twins. You won’t have time for any of that self-indulgance.
CATTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Is Linda still in cats withdrawal? Wouldn’t a few stray minutes over at cuteoverload.com fix that?
Do yourself a favor, Will, and make time for BSG. It’s the right thing to do and a tasty way to do it. (Save Dickens for when it’s cold outside.)
I’ve resigned myself to knowing that I will die without having read, watched, and listened to everything I want to, and will therefore die unfulfilled.
I also come up with complex OCD-inspired schedules ‘n’ stuff, to try to find ways to forcibly cram all this stuff in, and then don’t stick to them and play 1980s computer games that I had as a kid and have recently downloaded.
[...] truth is how much can a girl do with her time. Will asks “You’re all going through similar things, I’m sure. So what do you do?” I [...]
Since there’s no hope of keeping up with the flood of media while maintaining a reasonably social and productive lifestyle, I’m setting most of it aside for the last decade or so of my life. I’ll have some kind of comfy chair in which I’ll fall asleep listening to old-timey podcasts, 2D videos, etc. I’ll probably also be peeing myself a bit when stuff is funny.