Writer's Block: Take My Advice

[packbat]

What piece of advice do you wish you could take? View other answers

What advice do I wish I could take, but cannot?

Don't read this.

Stop browsing Livejournal. Stop getting that little burst of joy when you're see new LJ notification emails. Stop commenting on other people's posts and comments. Stop feeling like you're connecting when you fling your messages-in-bottles into the websurf and find others washed up on your shores.

Stop browsing other journals. Stop reading other comment threads. Stop replying in other comment threads. Stop looking for meaning in electrons.

Ditch the webcomics. Ditch the web serials. Ditch the forums. Ditch the Internet games. Ditch the e-books. Ditch the YouTube music videos. Get rid of the entertainments of your hours.

Throw away the computer. Live in the real world of hard work and rare pleasure.

Give in.

Comments

[bulmafox.livejournal.com]

o_O...why would you want to do something like that?

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Because it would make it easier to discharge my responsibilities. I am, to some extent, addicted to the World Wide Web, and quitting cold-turkey has a certain rough-and-ready attraction.

Also, because my cynicism likes to propel the idea that the world is a harsh and terrible place, one in which "easy" is synonymous with "sinful".

On the other hand, of course, I want not to do anything like this, never to do anything like this. But it's the thing that came to mind.

[ailado.livejournal.com]

My sister's beau recently gave up email, and has said that that alone was nigh impossible. He's similarly addicted, and just that small step put a big snag in everything he did. Communication became so difficult. We forget (because we spend so much time here) that the whole world is addicted. It's like trying to give up meth while living with tweakers.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

That is a delicious metaphor. :D And yeah, that's a big part of it: once the "labor-saving" innovation spreads, the people who don't use it suffer mightily.

[roaminrob.livejournal.com]

I did exactly this shortly after moving out of Florida. See, I had started working as a professional in the IT industry before I had even graduated high school; I got a job first as a part-time student assistant in my school district's data processing department, then that became full-time, and then a bit later I moved to Florida and took up a job at a large company doing in-house tech support and basic software development.

So, naturally, I burned out.

I was young and there was this entire facet of me that was addicted to wandering around up and down mountains and forests under the big blue sky, and I hadn't been feeding that. On top of that, computers are generally these petty, irritating, soul-munching succubi.

So, anyway, I dropped out. Moved back to California and bounced around a bit. Did retail, worked as a climbing instructor. I usually went for days at a time without even turning on a computer; occasionally, months at a time.

I do not regret that time, and it wasn't hard in the least. It was glorious. I wasn't exposed to the overwhelming mass of ignorance that is an entire global population. I didn't have to read all the news that gave me doubts about humanity's future. I just fixed things, and went outside.

That period of my life did eventually result in complete financial meltdown -- which I am still recovering from -- but I think of that as the cost of picking up a whole new set of skills, and getting to go on vacation for a few years and know what that actually feels like.

You just have to decide that you actually want to do that, and then find the courage to do it. It would probably require a completely new lifestyle -- new job, new goals in life, and it helps to move to somewhere new too -- but I think it was worth it, for me.

I long for that time now, and know that I'll never have it back. The time for that has passed, and now I have things to do. But, every day, I wish for the time when my day consisted of seeing my friends in person, teaching people how to have fun doing something that's a little bit outside their comfort zone, having sunshine on my face and a body that was good for something other than setting in a chair.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

That's true, too.

(Sorry for the late and uninteresting response.)