UNCOOKED - Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 32 minutes.
Are you joking me? I said outloud. Not only are they asking me to “preheat” my oven… (a step that takes time, and seems like a waste of it) they are asking me to wait another 32 minutes for my food to be done.
Attempting to find a quicker way around this situation I studied the box for the microwave instructions. DO NOT MICROWAVE was clearly written in bold letters.
Aside from being a poignant story, it’s also a true one and it just happened before I sat down to write this. My stuffed chicken breast is slowly being tortured along with me as I have to wait another twenty some minutes to eat. As I write in agony of hunger (not really) this real life lesson proves to be a great segue.
I wanted to write about my experience over the past week. Starting last Monday morning I did not allow myself to check my myspace/facebook/blog, I would not allow myself to click on my inbox button incessantly, I would not sit and watch on demand digital cable, I would not sit at work and out of boredom find the most random news stories I could find or just scroll through pages of digg.com, I turned off the cd player in my car, and didn't allow myself to listen to music anywhere and I went out and bought a journal, (a composition book, because all of the real journals are girly, I could not find one masculine looking journal there, but that’s okay because my journal was 97c) some pens (which were gel pens, and I hate them, if you want them let me know they are yours) and decided to live my week like a prehistoric cave man, minus the grunting and fire building.
You wouldn’t imagine how the first day I got SO BORED and didn’t know what to do with myself.
Without music subduing my brain, it forced me to think. It forced me to face myself and face the world. There was no escape. My thoughts were allowed time to build upon themselves allowing me to process things deeper.
I’ve wanted to get back into the habit of journaling but I never made the time for it and I justified the fact that I could type faster than I could write plus I could always read what I type, and well, sometimes I struggle to read even my own handwriting. I realized that when I type things, I type for an audience, even now I’m writing with you in mind, but when I write in my journal, I don’t need to have any pretentious writing voice and I can express things fully without having to worry about how it will come across.
This whole “media fast” stems from finishing up Jon Barnes’ recent publication entitled Blood Silk and Motivation. It’s a small compilation of writings divided into three parts. The first is just a collection of poetry that he’s written throughout the years, the second portion is his photography and words or phrases, and lastly is a short story looking into the future and the possibility of human isolation because of technology.
Jon and I meet weekly, mainly to discuss the bible. He’s a youth pastor at local congregation in my hometown. He allowed me to read a draft of his book before he released it and these types of topics continued to come up before, after or even during our bible discussions. The effects of technology.
I remember one specific conversation, I was asking him about discipline and how he does it, (me being a fairly undisciplined person) besides accrediting the fact that he was in a military family he just said that it goes in seasons and when its nice out he does a lot of reading. He talked about how environment helped, he said when he reads he reads on his back deck, and not in front of the computer, because when there is a computer in front of you it fosters a sense of “if it takes longer than two seconds I’ve waited to long.”
It’s funny to me that I talk like my “media fast” was an extended hiatus. It was a whopping five days, but it felt like forever.
I’m not sure how web 2.0 is really defined but I guess it encompasses things like myspace/facebook/blogging/youtube and the like. I checked my facebook yesterday for the first time in that five days and I had like 6 “friends requests” or whatever they are called on facebook. I denied some and accepted others. I’m not sure why people that I vaguely remember from middle school, or people from high school that I barley ever talked to want to be my “friend” on facebook.
The whole social networking thing just feels like I’m being sucked back into the high school popularity contest culture and I don’t really care to step a foot there. I guess we just naturally carry over our culture into the internet. Its just sad that this is the only way a lot of people communicate now. I’ve asked people to e-mail me instead of send me messages on myspace/facebook and I get told how old school e-mail is. I just hate the interface and extra noise/nonsense of the myspace/facebook pages it's like sensory overload. People have added so many gaudy glittery obnoxious flash graphics to their myspace pages, or added so many useless applications on facebook that it not only overwhelms me it slows down my computer.
I feel like the whole social networking thing does not foster real relationships. It allows you to know up to the minute what everyone is doing so you can pretty much stalk them without ever having to leave the house. You can check in on people on your terms, when its good for you, and you can comment if you want to. But if it’s a situation where you don’t want to get your hands dirty you can simply walk away (or close the internet window)
People can masquerade even more so on the internet. They are only going to show you how much they want to show you of themselves (I’m talking about personality and flaws here, although I’ve seen too much of some people in their pictures) on these sites.
And how do you pick your top friends?! I have a nervous breakdown every time I try to pick my “top eight” because I don’t want anyone to feel excluded… and how do you judge it? Do they have me in their top 8? Do they comment on my page often? And what do you do when someone takes you off their top friends, what does that mean?
It’s a very me-centric set of devices. If you want to feel great about yourself go comment on a bunch of other peoples pages and I bet you in a days time your wall will be filled with comments. Look how popular I am now!
When I post my photography blog, I love feedback, I love comments, I’m a words of affirmation guy… so I check my blog every two seconds to see if anyone commented starting as soon as I post. I’m starting to feel like an internet whore.
Does it amaze anyone else that you can find a 5 year old on you tube that is better than you at anything you can imagine. Its quite amazing really, and just has the tendency to make me want to quit life because I’ll never be that good at anything. Was information ever meant to spread that fast? You can be world famous within seconds with internet 2.0.
But how long does that fame last? We get tired and bored quickly, and we’re off searching for the next latest and greatest things within seconds of our jaws hitting the floor. Frankly I’m sick of the impatient, disposable and consumer lifestyle that we live… and the internet seems to only push me further off the deep end. This spills into every area of our lives. Some things will not come quickly, some things are not meant to be thrown away when they get old.
Why do we even pour ourselves into spewing our guts online? Have we become so disconnected from friends and family that we have to open up to complete strangers?
Maybe I’m alone in this, but I’m done sharing real personal information in my blogs, some of the deeper things about life, raw emotions and struggles. My friend Chris Bischoff came to the same realization and said that he felt like he was casting “pearls before swine.”
That question is more for me as the writer of personal things, not as you the reader. What motivates me to share deep secrets with complete strangers and air my business in the internet realm where anyone can have access to it?
If the world is to busy for us to have a real relationship and we can’t find the time to talk about things over a cup of coffee then why should I be sharing these things with you anyway? And since I’m frankly not interested in maintaining or working at acquaintance type “hey how’s the weather” relationships then I don’t have much of a place in this internet realm. Although I’m a hypocrite because that is the only reason I keep my social networking accounts is to briefly stay in touch with people I haven’t heard from in a while. In reality it is a great resource, but its sad when it becomes an addiction.
I think its sad, but I have a friend and we interact in real life and on the internet and I swear that our internet relationship is better than real life. That’s strange. This person opens up better online, but then when we get together in person its like those conversations never happened.
I’m sick of multi tasking everything I do. Can I really BE just one place at one time, can I devote my attention to a single thing? Can I shut off my cell phone when I’m hanging out with people and not be a slave to it when it rings?
Can I really apply or process the copious amounts of information that I take in every day? Am I really thinking through everything that I get bombarded with?
Am I even skimming this, and realizing that this is way to long to read. Will I remember anything that I read 10 minutes from now? Even if I did nod my head in agreement?
I’m not completely demonizing technology because it has made some amazing advances. It allows me to talk with friends that I have across the world that otherwise I would not be able to keep in contact with. But at the same time, I sometimes feel a slave to the internet… but again that would be my problem and not it’s problem.
This whole post is self deprecating because what am I doing? I’m writing for an audience and expressing something rather deep that I’ve learned.
Jim Baker
Are you joking me? I said outloud. Not only are they asking me to “preheat” my oven… (a step that takes time, and seems like a waste of it) they are asking me to wait another 32 minutes for my food to be done.
Attempting to find a quicker way around this situation I studied the box for the microwave instructions. DO NOT MICROWAVE was clearly written in bold letters.
Aside from being a poignant story, it’s also a true one and it just happened before I sat down to write this. My stuffed chicken breast is slowly being tortured along with me as I have to wait another twenty some minutes to eat. As I write in agony of hunger (not really) this real life lesson proves to be a great segue.
I wanted to write about my experience over the past week. Starting last Monday morning I did not allow myself to check my myspace/facebook/blog, I would not allow myself to click on my inbox button incessantly, I would not sit and watch on demand digital cable, I would not sit at work and out of boredom find the most random news stories I could find or just scroll through pages of digg.com, I turned off the cd player in my car, and didn't allow myself to listen to music anywhere and I went out and bought a journal, (a composition book, because all of the real journals are girly, I could not find one masculine looking journal there, but that’s okay because my journal was 97c) some pens (which were gel pens, and I hate them, if you want them let me know they are yours) and decided to live my week like a prehistoric cave man, minus the grunting and fire building.
You wouldn’t imagine how the first day I got SO BORED and didn’t know what to do with myself.
Without music subduing my brain, it forced me to think. It forced me to face myself and face the world. There was no escape. My thoughts were allowed time to build upon themselves allowing me to process things deeper.
I’ve wanted to get back into the habit of journaling but I never made the time for it and I justified the fact that I could type faster than I could write plus I could always read what I type, and well, sometimes I struggle to read even my own handwriting. I realized that when I type things, I type for an audience, even now I’m writing with you in mind, but when I write in my journal, I don’t need to have any pretentious writing voice and I can express things fully without having to worry about how it will come across.
This whole “media fast” stems from finishing up Jon Barnes’ recent publication entitled Blood Silk and Motivation. It’s a small compilation of writings divided into three parts. The first is just a collection of poetry that he’s written throughout the years, the second portion is his photography and words or phrases, and lastly is a short story looking into the future and the possibility of human isolation because of technology.
Jon and I meet weekly, mainly to discuss the bible. He’s a youth pastor at local congregation in my hometown. He allowed me to read a draft of his book before he released it and these types of topics continued to come up before, after or even during our bible discussions. The effects of technology.
I remember one specific conversation, I was asking him about discipline and how he does it, (me being a fairly undisciplined person) besides accrediting the fact that he was in a military family he just said that it goes in seasons and when its nice out he does a lot of reading. He talked about how environment helped, he said when he reads he reads on his back deck, and not in front of the computer, because when there is a computer in front of you it fosters a sense of “if it takes longer than two seconds I’ve waited to long.”
It’s funny to me that I talk like my “media fast” was an extended hiatus. It was a whopping five days, but it felt like forever.
I’m not sure how web 2.0 is really defined but I guess it encompasses things like myspace/facebook/blogging/youtube and the like. I checked my facebook yesterday for the first time in that five days and I had like 6 “friends requests” or whatever they are called on facebook. I denied some and accepted others. I’m not sure why people that I vaguely remember from middle school, or people from high school that I barley ever talked to want to be my “friend” on facebook.
The whole social networking thing just feels like I’m being sucked back into the high school popularity contest culture and I don’t really care to step a foot there. I guess we just naturally carry over our culture into the internet. Its just sad that this is the only way a lot of people communicate now. I’ve asked people to e-mail me instead of send me messages on myspace/facebook and I get told how old school e-mail is. I just hate the interface and extra noise/nonsense of the myspace/facebook pages it's like sensory overload. People have added so many gaudy glittery obnoxious flash graphics to their myspace pages, or added so many useless applications on facebook that it not only overwhelms me it slows down my computer.
I feel like the whole social networking thing does not foster real relationships. It allows you to know up to the minute what everyone is doing so you can pretty much stalk them without ever having to leave the house. You can check in on people on your terms, when its good for you, and you can comment if you want to. But if it’s a situation where you don’t want to get your hands dirty you can simply walk away (or close the internet window)
People can masquerade even more so on the internet. They are only going to show you how much they want to show you of themselves (I’m talking about personality and flaws here, although I’ve seen too much of some people in their pictures) on these sites.
And how do you pick your top friends?! I have a nervous breakdown every time I try to pick my “top eight” because I don’t want anyone to feel excluded… and how do you judge it? Do they have me in their top 8? Do they comment on my page often? And what do you do when someone takes you off their top friends, what does that mean?
It’s a very me-centric set of devices. If you want to feel great about yourself go comment on a bunch of other peoples pages and I bet you in a days time your wall will be filled with comments. Look how popular I am now!
When I post my photography blog, I love feedback, I love comments, I’m a words of affirmation guy… so I check my blog every two seconds to see if anyone commented starting as soon as I post. I’m starting to feel like an internet whore.
Does it amaze anyone else that you can find a 5 year old on you tube that is better than you at anything you can imagine. Its quite amazing really, and just has the tendency to make me want to quit life because I’ll never be that good at anything. Was information ever meant to spread that fast? You can be world famous within seconds with internet 2.0.
But how long does that fame last? We get tired and bored quickly, and we’re off searching for the next latest and greatest things within seconds of our jaws hitting the floor. Frankly I’m sick of the impatient, disposable and consumer lifestyle that we live… and the internet seems to only push me further off the deep end. This spills into every area of our lives. Some things will not come quickly, some things are not meant to be thrown away when they get old.
Why do we even pour ourselves into spewing our guts online? Have we become so disconnected from friends and family that we have to open up to complete strangers?
Maybe I’m alone in this, but I’m done sharing real personal information in my blogs, some of the deeper things about life, raw emotions and struggles. My friend Chris Bischoff came to the same realization and said that he felt like he was casting “pearls before swine.”
That question is more for me as the writer of personal things, not as you the reader. What motivates me to share deep secrets with complete strangers and air my business in the internet realm where anyone can have access to it?
If the world is to busy for us to have a real relationship and we can’t find the time to talk about things over a cup of coffee then why should I be sharing these things with you anyway? And since I’m frankly not interested in maintaining or working at acquaintance type “hey how’s the weather” relationships then I don’t have much of a place in this internet realm. Although I’m a hypocrite because that is the only reason I keep my social networking accounts is to briefly stay in touch with people I haven’t heard from in a while. In reality it is a great resource, but its sad when it becomes an addiction.
I think its sad, but I have a friend and we interact in real life and on the internet and I swear that our internet relationship is better than real life. That’s strange. This person opens up better online, but then when we get together in person its like those conversations never happened.
I’m sick of multi tasking everything I do. Can I really BE just one place at one time, can I devote my attention to a single thing? Can I shut off my cell phone when I’m hanging out with people and not be a slave to it when it rings?
Can I really apply or process the copious amounts of information that I take in every day? Am I really thinking through everything that I get bombarded with?
Am I even skimming this, and realizing that this is way to long to read. Will I remember anything that I read 10 minutes from now? Even if I did nod my head in agreement?
I’m not completely demonizing technology because it has made some amazing advances. It allows me to talk with friends that I have across the world that otherwise I would not be able to keep in contact with. But at the same time, I sometimes feel a slave to the internet… but again that would be my problem and not it’s problem.
This whole post is self deprecating because what am I doing? I’m writing for an audience and expressing something rather deep that I’ve learned.
Jim Baker
7 comments:
Okay, so you're a whore and I'm swine. I like that image. The funny thing about you Jim is that you can't help being who you are, so all your threats of taking yourself away are based in a place deep and profound in you that you share with the world through this vehicle. Your blog actually makes a difference. Your cursing it speaks deeply too. I love the access technology has given me to a world that was once far away and out of reach. I hate it too, as I am a feedback junkie. Yes, the message is "love me." It's why I comment on other people's blogs. It's their message too and I do love them. I don't have to know them any better to know that. Face book has enormous potential as we age. Jess has been communicated with twice about deaths of dear friends through facebook. It's expedient,like the newspaper but more reliable. You have a choice about how to use your tools. I'm glad to hear your efforts to claim yourself back. It is overwhelming and maybe it's just time to go on a diet.
I tend to agree completely...
Technology is a gift, but often abused. There is a lot of useless stuff on facebook that serves nothing except to waste time. There is usefulness to it in that you can contact anyone quite easily. But I often wonder if the pros actually outweigh the cons. I am inclined to say no.
That's a lot of thought in that post, most of which has come to my mind over the years. Strange that people feel safer putting thoughts down where millions can see than telling a friend or two.
Kinda makes you want the days of the front porch and the rocking chair, when people would just gather and talk about stuff. When people called instead of texted. When we favored vastly the personal over the impersonal.
See you in two weeks!
and wow, the second paragraph up there sounds completely different from my intention.
Those were definitely two different thoughts. I am talking about people in general, not you - for I know you've told me a lot of this stuff in person, and you've talked to others too.
Hope that didn't throw you for too big a loop there...
note to self: proofread for clarity.
jeff... no worries man :) thanks for reading and for posting... do you have any ideas of where we should shoot when you get back?
pz
jim baker
There might be some cool places down the patapsco river towards Baltimore...like Thomas Viaduct, a big stone bridge.
Is there anything peculiar down by Columbia that you know of?
We could shoot the old barn place in my neighborhood...
yeah man whatever you want to shoot... i'm running out of ideas...
your last location was a real good spot so your the location scout now.
jim baker
Sorry I didn't read this earlier... it is long, maybe that's why (I really have been swamped at work... and at home it's the same old same old... if the technology isn't getting me / distracting me, it's the kids... )
I agree. I'm sitting here for a rare evening with the TV completely off. I have the radio on-- it never gets used any more. Yes, I'm on the computer, but some how this is mo bettah....
I used to be a slave to the telephone... I would drop everything instantly and run to it at the first ring... nowadays, I sometimes just let it ring till it quits. I figure if it is an emergency they'll call back. Especially if I'm involved in something. I think this started when I was replacing the wax ring that seals the toilet to the sewer line one day... it is one of the least desirable jobs a homeowner can think of. Gotta scrape off all the old wax, then bleach it, etc etc.. well... every time I would get a new pair of rubber gloves on and have sticky (and @#$*%*@#-y) wax all over them... the phone would ring. Cured me of my slavery. (I do check the caller ID when I get a chance, especially if loved ones are on the road...)
Anyway... I think you're right... society is going to get to some sort of information overload, and then people will be paying big bucks so they can have a 56K modem installed (new "super slow internet"... )
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