LIVING WITH LAW & ORDER
How much of my life has been eaten away by watching Law & Order? 38.5 days, approximately. I did the math. And yet even knowing that here I am. I thought I might have finally escaped it but recently Netflix went ahead and posted the first 8 seasons of the show. Now, it’s right at my fingertips. It’s like being a junkie waking up to find your room is a giant cave full of meth and there are little meth trolls mining meth all day long just for you. What am I supposed to do, say no? The trolls worked hard damnit and I’m not about to let that effort be for naught.
Meth Troll Overlord
If it wasn’t Law & Order it would be something else. It would be Facebook. It would be twitter. It would be catching up on my podcasts or sorting my music or the millions of other things I devote time to instead of doing anything I actually want. Law & Order is great for my life of distraction. I turn it on but I don’t even watch it. I don’t have to. It’s so structured and simple I could follow it from a coma. It’s safe and mindless. It’s the time suck I feel okay with because I convince myself it’s not really a time suck. I never just sit and watch the show. I’m getting other things done. I’m being ‘productive’. But the things I get done when watching Law & Order aren’t really things that need done.
My problem is I am completely incapable of sitting down at home with anything I actually want to give my full attention. There are hundreds of books and films I want to experience, stories I have every intention of writing but I can never focus on any of them for more than a few minutes. Knowing that I watch something I won’t feel guilty for not paying attention to. I guess that’s considered ADD but I think it’s just poor will power. This is why I can only ever see movies in the theater. Watching a full film for the first time at home, for me, is impossible. I can’t escape the urge to check on something or research an arbitrary thought that crossed my mind. Sure I could run them in the background and let the distractions run free but I feel disrespectful not giving a fresh film my full attention, and knowing that I can’t do it they end up unwatched. The last time I tried I spent half the movie debating the value of rearranging my room.
Turning off my time sucks wouldn’t work. I don’t have the control for it. So instead I’m trying to streamline them. If they can’t be delete then maybe I can reduce the length of time wasted to it’s most basic form. I’ve started researching RSS readers and building twitter lists so I can tune out the junk in the heap of garbage I’ve convinced myself I need to know. Slowly though that very research is becoming a new branch of my problem. My solutions are the paramedics of Return of the Living Dead. The zombies tear apart and eat each one and then radio for more. Hopefully my chances of overcoming this are better than a zombie film.
