Sobriquet 55.16
I'm going to try to keep today's entry about as brief as I can for reasons that, I hope, will become clear soon enough. The anxiety with which I woke yesterday returned this morning with something of a vengeance. Initially, I'd hoped to sit down and get some more writing done, edging ever closer to the conclusion of the seemingly interminable Disgrace chapter on which I have been working for more than a year. When I sat down to work on the chapter, however, a whole new wave of anxiety swept over my mind. I didn't feel comfortable writing on a different computer from that which I feel is "home," and, in a moment of prolonged frustration, I began exploring the possibility of buying a new, cheap laptop so that I could soothe my jangled nerves with a fully-functioning computer I could call my own. At one point, I even started contemplating buying a cheap laptop on credit.
Then it hit me with the force of Nolan Ryan fastball: I was responding to a miniature crisis in the most extreme of ways. The logical solution, of course, would be to wait a few days for my Mac to emerge from the shop all polished, ready for a mulligan. Instead, I was letting my self-imposed deadlines to get in the way of some very reasonable thinking. I felt as if I needed to finish my chapter immediately and ship it off to my supervisor, even though no such deadline exists. And, since I will finish it soon, regardless of whether or not my hard drive can be scavenged for lost files, there is really no reason I should push myself so hard to write anything in the handful of days between now and when I learn the ultimate fate of my computer. Duh.
So, I got to thinking, wondering how, exactly, I let myself get so worked up over what is, ultimately, a very minor inconvenience. I concluded that, like many people, I have grown just a bit too reliant upon computers. And, rather than sit around aching like an addict going through withdrawal, I have decided to take a brief vacation from technology. In other words, I am leaving computers and the internet behind; I am signing off for a little while and deliberately placing myself in a situation in which the white noise of the digital age will be blunted, though I will make some key exceptions for safety and transportation reasons. I will have my cellular phone with me and I will, in all likelihood, post occasional mobile updates to Facebook to keep my loved ones informed of my whereabouts. Likewise, I will use my automobile and I may even bring my iPod...but fuck computers. A dissertation is nerve-wracking enough as it is; screw worrying about technology for a few days.
For tomorrow and Wednesday, at the very least: Shun the internet in favor of reading books.
Then it hit me with the force of Nolan Ryan fastball: I was responding to a miniature crisis in the most extreme of ways. The logical solution, of course, would be to wait a few days for my Mac to emerge from the shop all polished, ready for a mulligan. Instead, I was letting my self-imposed deadlines to get in the way of some very reasonable thinking. I felt as if I needed to finish my chapter immediately and ship it off to my supervisor, even though no such deadline exists. And, since I will finish it soon, regardless of whether or not my hard drive can be scavenged for lost files, there is really no reason I should push myself so hard to write anything in the handful of days between now and when I learn the ultimate fate of my computer. Duh.
So, I got to thinking, wondering how, exactly, I let myself get so worked up over what is, ultimately, a very minor inconvenience. I concluded that, like many people, I have grown just a bit too reliant upon computers. And, rather than sit around aching like an addict going through withdrawal, I have decided to take a brief vacation from technology. In other words, I am leaving computers and the internet behind; I am signing off for a little while and deliberately placing myself in a situation in which the white noise of the digital age will be blunted, though I will make some key exceptions for safety and transportation reasons. I will have my cellular phone with me and I will, in all likelihood, post occasional mobile updates to Facebook to keep my loved ones informed of my whereabouts. Likewise, I will use my automobile and I may even bring my iPod...but fuck computers. A dissertation is nerve-wracking enough as it is; screw worrying about technology for a few days.
For tomorrow and Wednesday, at the very least: Shun the internet in favor of reading books.
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