It’s Saturday and I’m up again with purpose. Dad is in a new home and I have to leave soon, but I want to dash down some thoughts.
Forcing myself to write is the only way to get enough content out it seems. These weekend mornings serve as a sounding board but in blog-sized bites. I’m not always sure 700 words are enough to convey subtle or incredibly deep topics and maybe they aren’t, but the form is worthy in that it forces me to be more concise, more controlled.
Shakespeare is credited with saying “Brevity is the soul of wit,” and I agree to a point. But I wonder if the blog form only arose out of necessity. For years we humans worked toward a day when, having met our basic needs, we found comfort in long letters, books, or articles to fill our minds. Even now as some lament the loss of the written word and the rise of the sound bite culture, information is flowing. We’re not consuming less by any stretch. In fact, depending on how busy you are, the length of your reading may be dictated by the available amount of time you have.
I reduced my TV watching substantially years ago, primarily because I’m a computer geek and I was spending time on my PC writing code. Work and family left little time for computers and TV and TV lost. I only watch two or three shows and fall asleep to documentaries. My time was better spent learning than sitting on the sofa consuming content I’ll forget in 10 minutes. Eventually I came to understand that life is about time and goal management. Learning that having some things means giving up others forced me to come up with some guidelines.
- Get enough sleep each night for energy
- Get enough exercise to stay healthy
- Do something creative
- Disengage from your mind
If I validate watching TV against these rules it doesn’t satisfy the first two, unless I’m on a treadmill for number 2. It can inspire creativity, but I try to be careful. If I watch too much TV it affects 1 and 2 and only temporarily achieves #4.
Disengaging simply means turning off the inner voice. I’m going to violate the blog word count rule if I venture too far into the myriad of ways you can disengage, but try meditation or #3. The point is to recharge your brain by learning how to not think about the things that drain it.
I have to pick and choose all I read and watch in order to have the kind of life I want. Writing has to push some things around to get time, as does everything else in my life. Reducing it down to small subjects and salient points is a challenge I enjoy.
I hope you do too.