[The below was originally posted to my Facebook, kept here for mainly selfish reasons. You can comment on it. ]
I'm your friend. You like me. You like talking to me, listening to me, spending time with me. I stopped a bunch of distracting activities not too long ago and consequently you will have more of my focus and attention.
You're important to me, and every single day I think to myself, "damn I miss my friends from back in the day." I miss you from Hauppauge. I miss you from the early days at BU. If you're reading this…odds are you are missed by me.
There might or might not be anything we can do to rekindle our friendship, only time will tell. Either way, as of today, you are missed, and you won't be soon forgotten. Maybe we should chat.
[Everything below is a message I wrote mostly to inspire my future self, do not read it.]
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I don't watch TV.
I don't read blogs.
I don't read the news.
I have no idea what's going on with elections.
I don't know what happened on the last episode of Game of Thrones.
I'm stuck with a lot of knowledge and behavior learned from TV. I know what happened in just about every episode of The Office, The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Friends, Sex and the City, and Everybody Loves Raymond.
TV…it's there. It's not going away, it will just hop on the Internet so it can be anywhere I want it, anytime I want it. It's not all crap. But it IS all the same. Every TV show is the same fake stuff, all scripted, all with millions of dollars invested. No wonder I liked watching it so much- it's so well made! And if were to go back to it, I would probably STILL like all of it.
The news, no matter how it's consumed is pretty much all the same; irrelevant to me. I'm not just talking about the mainstream news, CNN, The New York Times, TMZ, and The Wall Street Journal. I'm also talking about the online news that covers topics I'm REALLY into. The sites I like, TechCrunch, FourHourBlog, PandoDaily, and BostInno… they are mostly irrelevant! When I read them all there is simply too much to consume to make any use of.
Now, know this, the problem is with my behavior. From the time I was a little boy with a bedtime till just a few months ago, I watched and read the news constantly. I'd read while I wasn't watching TV. Or I'd read while watching TV. There are groups out there who would say "Oh well when someone is raised in front of a TV it's not entirely their fault if they keep doing it." Theres some truth in that, sure, great for them.
But knowing what I know now, it would be irresponsible for me to go back.
I owe it to myself to keep on ignoring TV, the news, and blogs for a long, long, time.
I started with a 32 day trial from March 19 to April 19. I committed to cutting out the news, TV (including web video like documentaries and TED Talks), and all blogs.
Then I realized I had nothing to do! And I went on to new distractions! Fiction books, twitter, Fruit Ninja, and Temple Run.
Since May 10 I have been following the same regimen, stopping everything above plus no twitter. I started with a commitment to stop these things for the summer. I've extended that commitment to last at least until I'm done with the Fall semester at BU, December 21.
What's the best thing about this TV/News/Blog "fast"? I learned from the first trial. When removing distractions, other things will inevitably fill my time. Without a plan, I'll just get more distractions!
Now, however, I have added things to my day that I care about. Every day I answer at least one question about the iPhone and post it to the iPhoneHow.To blog. Every day I spend at least one hour working on a new venture.
Even if these things do not work out, if I get bored, I must look for different things to do. There is plenty of things I haven't done and haven't explore. There is also plenty of things that I quit on too early.
Note to self: Be like that Pursuit of Happyness guy and "find something you love to do so much that you can't wait to wake up in the morning to do it all over again." Never mind the fact that you probably read that quote on a blog, just keep going forward!
