If 'life is short' is such a universal complaint then why do we waste so much time on the internet? The best thing you could say about it, is that it helps pass the time when the weather is bad or the sun is down. But so would playing Solitaire.
Charles Hugh Smith had an interesting post about how worthless 'the News' is:
This is all so obvious that there is little to be gained by berating this stuff. Instead, let us just accept the fact that human beings have a certain amount of time to kill, and that they also need distraction from the dreariness and seriousness of life. The question is, can we think of a better way to meet that need?
The publishing industry is the real villain here. The world is full of talented writers forced to produce weighty tomes that don't meet the humble 'daily nibble' requirements of real human beings.
Another under-rated activity is non-extreme sports and outdoor activities, such as sauntering with your dog. I have gone to nice, new dog parks in small cities and found nobody there. Where is everybody? At home, watching the news? When somebody is there, a much better conversation ensues than at bars, restaurants, or coffee shops.
Very few places in America have a bicycle culture, even in a state like Colorado. The other day I overlapped with a woman riding her "commuter" bike into town. There is a special charm in adult women using a bicycle to run errands in town, especially if they are wearing a dress. They look so youthful and unharried by the 'thousand and one' things-to-do of the average matron. We had a nice conversation in which I did most of the listening.
As we hit the city limits and the ride was nearing its end, I found myself involuntarily fluttering my eyelashes at her. She hadn't dropped the infamous "We..." into the conversation, and I wanted to invite her to a cup of coffee at my favorite hangout. But she needed to go to work.
Charles Hugh Smith had an interesting post about how worthless 'the News' is:
The "news" is so devoid of content that a simple software program could assemble a semi-random daily selection of headlines, scrolling banners, and radio/TV "news" reports from a pool of typical "news" stories and insert a bit of context...What he said about the news would apply to other genres of internet fluff, such as debt&doom blogs, travel blogs, or perhaps worst of all, the 'what I did today' blogs.
This is all so obvious that there is little to be gained by berating this stuff. Instead, let us just accept the fact that human beings have a certain amount of time to kill, and that they also need distraction from the dreariness and seriousness of life. The question is, can we think of a better way to meet that need?
The publishing industry is the real villain here. The world is full of talented writers forced to produce weighty tomes that don't meet the humble 'daily nibble' requirements of real human beings.
Another under-rated activity is non-extreme sports and outdoor activities, such as sauntering with your dog. I have gone to nice, new dog parks in small cities and found nobody there. Where is everybody? At home, watching the news? When somebody is there, a much better conversation ensues than at bars, restaurants, or coffee shops.
Very few places in America have a bicycle culture, even in a state like Colorado. The other day I overlapped with a woman riding her "commuter" bike into town. There is a special charm in adult women using a bicycle to run errands in town, especially if they are wearing a dress. They look so youthful and unharried by the 'thousand and one' things-to-do of the average matron. We had a nice conversation in which I did most of the listening.
As we hit the city limits and the ride was nearing its end, I found myself involuntarily fluttering my eyelashes at her. She hadn't dropped the infamous "We..." into the conversation, and I wanted to invite her to a cup of coffee at my favorite hangout. But she needed to go to work.
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