**FAST FORWARD 10 YEARS. It is today August 17, 2020. I am reposting this post from 2010. Why? In 2010, I mentioned I had to go on a media diet. Ten years ago. Wanted to give an update: my media diet is near-starvation level. I focus only on what is outside my window like tomato cages that I use to keep my dahlias from falling over.
2010 Post:
There’s a new book called, “The Shallows-What the Internet is Doing To Our Brains”.
I’ve ordered it from my library but have read excerpts (gulp) from the internet.
I’m exhibit A. Proof that access to information does not equal wisdom but does make focusing on something for longer than the life of a mayfly incredibly difficult.
“The Internet, Carr laments, simply returns us to our “natural state of distractedness.”-NPR
I’m going on a media diet. The man is 100 percent right.
This may be harder than managing carbohydrates.
No..not “may be harder”.
Will be harder.
I am beginning this new media diet tomorrow.
Ever heard that line before?
2020 post:
I aggressively limit news alerts and only listen to factual scientific presentations about the pandemic as over 160 thousand Americans have died so far. I read more now and I am awaiting the publication of one of my favorite authors, Elena Ferrante, who has a new book, “The Lying Lives of Adults”. It will arrive on September 1 if Trump hasn’t closed the Post Office entirely by then.
It’s fiction and not inspired by him. His biographers would be advised to take their cue from her title, though, and edit it to “A Lying Life”. They wouldn’t have to write another word. A book with blank pages where the title says it all.
Here is an Instagram clip of a question asked during a White House briefing that I have been waiting for three years to hear.
“After three and a half years, do you regret at all, all the lying you have done to the American people?”
©Pat Coakley 2010
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**Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased at www.patcoakley.com
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As soon as I leave this comment I’m RUNNING to Amazon to check out this book. I may be Exhibit B.
Love your stalks. Sometimes prefer stalks to talks. I have a short attention span.
Carol, no word of a lie, I started this morning with my media diet. #1 New Rule: Upon waking no electronic media, cell phone, TV for one hour. I was thinking I would read for an hour. What did I do? I changed outfits for the day for a bleepin’ hour. Honest to friggin’ God as if I was Heidi Klum goin’ to the Red Carpet. I couldn’t seem to settle down to read anything but a label on the back of a shirt. Oh, yeah, this is a problem, matie. PS. These flowers make me laugh positioned this way. They look like they are chatting amongst themselves.
Hooray for your chatting stalks. At least they honor the old fashioned form of communicating among themselves. Alarmingly, I don’t think the rest of humanity is doing too well on that front.
The new scenario is to enter and exit texting. I watched for it in NY last week and wasn’t disappointed. Every person leaving the elevator had their device in hand, waiting for the next urgent missive. Have we all become as relevant as heart surgeons? What can’t wait a few minutes?
We saw it coming when fights broke out on the sofa for domain over the remote. Funny, that word. That’s what we’re becoming to each other.
So I sit here, at 7:30 AM, already up since 5:30 and after walking the dogs, eating breakfast and thinking I’ll get a jump on the day, I’m typing my comment.
I haven’t the remotest idea…..
Guilty.
Bon Bon, what a good observation about the remote!
I think it’s all about feeling hollow. What better antidote than “wireless” connections? Ah, deep thoughts!
They are not only chatting, some of them are complaining (look at the one on the far left), barking an order (second from the right) and gazing up in awe (far right). I love these stalks!
Oh,Al, you are right! They are so animated. I luv them, too! They are called Seracums or something like that. Never saw them before. Bought inWhole Foods.
Who needs to read? Just spend more time at the flower counter… imagine the inspiration, and the new people you will meet!
Seriously, even without reading this book, changes in interpersonal communication styles, shorter attention spans, and a decline in critical thinking abilities are obvious. As with Facebook, we may have many more “friends” now, but “know” so very few. Those stalks above probably know each other better! (A stunning and humorous picture, by the way.)
I salute your vow to go on a diet. For those of us needing further motivation, please report back on the effects on your quality of life (including the ability to pick a better outfit for the day).
Don, I’m writing this from a train snaking under Boston….,I only checked my messages when visiting a restroom! But there was a furtive quality to it!
the way they relate together the stalks have grace and a certain authority,
and it does seem as if they are in some sort of consortium perhaps discussing the issue from stalk perspective. the color/detail is fantastic
Reading through all the comments made me think of the Italian restaurant around the corner that has a sign outside that says:
“Old fashioned chat room. Talk to the people you came with.”
I went out to lunch today with friends at work and forgot my phone. I was so itchy because I couldn’t check my emails and texts. Aurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
Oh, this is really not going well here in Massachusetts, either, but I think I feel the yoke of itchiness lifting. I think it feels like choice but it’s too early to tell. I see that we can now post by voice at wordpress. Just call and they record and then post. Now, maybe I’ll try that this week. Is that cheating?
Is it cheating? I don’t know. Does the machine understand NY Accents?