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⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-04)
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As much as it earnestly felt like I had quit YouTube do the
experience of it running ads right in the middle of of an
intense musical experience I was having, I fell off the
wagon yesterday into the night, and the early a.m., giving
up the ghost at 3:00 in the morning [1].
It looks like YouTube will have to follow the pattern set by
Twitter and Reddit of gradually winding usage down until one
day I can achieve Grover Norquist's for the government and be
able to drown it in the bathtub.
When that future act of web-i-cide occurs I will be sure to
wait a bit longer to report it as I am a bit embarrassed to
have hooked up to the feeds yet again. But there is a kind
of emptiness that makes a sort of palliative itch-scratching.
Via Gemini I came to this quote from House of Leaves by Mark Z
Danielewski:
Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without
thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of
minutes. The violence comes from a combination of
giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting
past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you
kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you
do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you
need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there
is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body.
The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes
or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth
indicating something has been suffered, that in the
privacy of your life you have lost something and
the loss is too empty to share.
In an odd way I am sort of glad that I felt these negative
feelings. This at least gives me feelings to express beyond
bemusement at pattern.
So why did I feel so empty? Looking from the distance some
sleep, coffee, and looking out to verdure and bird play, I
have a few theories. But, you know, just thinking about
them, going on a walk, putting them in outline form,
writing the rest of the email and then taking a nap has
left me not feeling like going into any of it. Partly this
is because the last great rabbit hole I went down was on
P.G. Wodehouse. I had not realized there would be video
interviews of him. Here's one such interview and then a
documentary:
I say this with no irony: who needs insight, the turning
points of history, or anything ponderous when you can have
Wodehouse?
I am deliberately taking a day off from my studies (one of
my theories as to why I was so depressed was pushing myself
too hard there, then guilt at the prospect of giving up) [2].
And I now know that my destiny is not to just read
non-fiction. No, no, there is enough Wodehouse to make a
nice reading life out of. I'm only three in, lifetime, so
over 60 novels alone to go.
I say go to the light.
===
[1] I had also joined sdf.org and was going through the
initial attempts and mistakes necessary to wield the tools
with joy and make the place a home.
[2] Since I gave one theory, here is another -- that piece
I wrote yesterday, [the sexy one], left me deeply
disheartened. Any society that can punch up the word sexy
is not only deeply dehumanizing, but preying on human
weakness -- all with an attractive gloss. You are a fool
for falling for it, but a greater fool for trying to be
outside of it. The word idiot traces back to Greek for
being an individual out of step with those around you.
And I sensed the darkness and isolation in all that. But
enough of that. To beautiful days and beautiful books,
and even beautiful videos.