Finding Meaning in the Modern World

Confession: I spend way too much time on the Internet.

I'm pretty sure I've referenced that fact here before. It's been a recurring problem, except for that glorious and tragic stretch of time that my charger was still broken and I had access to computers only as long as the campus computer labs were open. I got so much reading done during those two months.

But recently, I've had excess access. I can't even feel guilty about turning my laptop on to check one little thing because there is always a computer on in the house. Usually at least two, now that we got a replacement for one that died. And the one likes to wake itself up so the screen is always inviting, always tempting. [I know, it's a terrible American thing of us to be so wasteful and it drives me insane.]

I am not very good at resisting that kind of temptation.

If only my cat weren't so fat and lazy, he could do an intervention for me.

And so I spend all this time, doing...stuff? I follow all these blogs, read all these articles, laugh at all these memes, and then? Forget most of the content the next day.

I have this weird, OCD habit when I start to follow a new blog, that I try to read through all the previous blog posts. The entire archives. Sometimes years and years worth. There are still a couple I haven't even finished yet. The other day, an author was deleting a bunch of posts, all of which I had gone back and read, and I was relieved that I hadn't missed my chance. I was thinking about it later, and I couldn't remember what any of them were about. Why had I needed to read a hundred something posts? And sure, they were wildly entertaining when I did read them. But did it matter?

That's what I'm coming back to more and more these days: does it matter? As I sit in this comfortable little big house and eat my privileged meals and drive my efficient car and use all this water and electricity. What am I doing to matter?

It feels like most things on the Internet are so temporary, so meaningless. The social justice parts of it, I really love. The sharing of ideas, spreading of open-mindedness. The ideals of what being online could be. And there's lots of places that aren't like that at all, places that I try desperately to avoid because they just make me sad for the future of humankind. Then there's all the art on display. The authors, the painters, the musicians, the filmmakers, the actors, the dancers, the photographers, the people doing crafty things because they love it. There is meaning to be found in art, a deeper connection across all of us that I long for.

I found this image and proceeded to read 5 pages worth of comics.

I'm still struggling to rectify these two ideas, filling a life with campaigning, raising awareness, spreading healing and also with beauty, entertainment, suspension of reality. I have to remind myself that all the reading and TV watching and gossip following that I do is not wholly in vain. My brain needs a chance to relax, unwind, rid itself of all the garbage that gets into it every day.

And I am not embarrassed to acknowledge that sometimes, the best way to do that is to watch a movie where nothing makes sense and everything blows up.