Adjust the Sails

"To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement,

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return,

To live is to risk dying,

To hope is to risk despair,

To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow,

But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.

Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.

Only a person who risks is free.

The pessimist complains about the wind;

The optimist expects it to change;

And the realist adjusts the sails."

~William Arthur Ward

Too Much Information

Even the cats are goners.

I've been obsessively surfing for hours. This happens to me pretty regularly, oh...like every day. There is just too much information on the web. My brain feels like it's about to enter the beginning stages of spontaneous combustion. The worst thing about this, is I want to see it ALL. I want to learn new things and see things I haven't seen before. I want to hear every opinion, read ALL of the web logs, see all of the videos and there is just no conceivable way that will EVER happen.

We're in an age of information overload. And that's another thing....some of what I read is fact, some is fiction, some is fiction disguised as fact. I cannot possibly rightly discern all of it.

Now this sounds like a mentally stressful dilemma, but I'm finding that it's more addictive than stressful. However, this may cause some stress when I don't cook, or the dishes pile to the ceiling, or my mother doesn't hear from me for a month.

I don't know whether it's good or bad, but my partner is also glued to the internet. I remember my parents being glued to the television, and I thought that was so lame when I was a kid. They would sit and watch that screen endlessly, as the world poured in pre-scripted rubbish and I thought their minds must be turning to jelly. I saw it as such a passive thing, allowing information and entertainment to be thrust at you, with no opportunity for you to have a second side to the conversation. Heh.....there WAS NO conversation.

Now with all the interactivity of the web, I have the opposite problem. Between assorted forums, web log comment logs, blogs, vlogs, twitters, MMOs, gaming communities, photo sharing sites, instant messengers, social bookmarking, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, I have way too MUCH interactivity. There is no way to "do it all," and you're left feeling like you just MIGHT be missing out on something that is going on somewhere.

I surmise that a person with attention deficit disorder might THRIVE in such an environment. Well, either that, or they'd go completely and irrevocably insane. I probably fall into the ADD catergory AND the teetering on the brink of insanity one, at any given point.

So what is a person to do with this much information, misinformation, and communication as close as their fingertips?

I'll be honest with you. I'm not so sure that the internet is making addicts as much as it is attracting those that already have addictive and/or obsessive compulsive natures. I, for one, have some pretty obvious psychiatric diagnoses that would lend themselves to web-entrapment for SURE. And while I don't want to just be making weak excuses....there are far worse things I could be doing with my time that would be more detrimental to myself and my family.

So, alright....this topic has been re-hashed forever and ever. I've no interest in the debate about it really, other than the question I personally have and that is; how can I get over the feeling that if I'm NOT online....I'm missing something? Because the fact of the matter is....I AM missing something! There is new information being made available every second. And I just KNOW that I'm going to be the last person to hear about it, read about it, chat about it, blog about it.....

ARGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

Oh nevermind....I'll just go take my prescribed psychiatric therapeutic meds and carry on.

~image from http://flickr.com/photos/vickispix/

No, seriously....

I never intended for this blog to be all serious and shit. So far, I'm looking back on my past posts and thinking....oh my god....it's too deep. Well, life does have it's deep moments (blinks, as I call them), but you know what? A lot of life is just pretty damn funny too!

I have another blog, of sorts, that probably has, up to this point, reflected my laughing-self better than this one. I would love it if you'd visit me there! You can find it here at StumbleUpon.

However, just so you know, I'm going to try to interject the same lightness of being into this blog. I have just been investing more of my time "over there." So, bear with me through my budding blogger growth, and know that I'm just a baby blogger coming into her own. As with everything else in life....there is nothing that is changeless except change itself. And oh yes, there is always plenty of that.