The advent of the Information age has made it stupidly easy for us to watch all the movies, documentaries, shows, tutorials we want to; listen to everything from songs both old and new, comic concerts, classical compositions to audio books; and read, read all you want, anything you want, there are people out there writing about everything from articles on how to take care of and polish your leather shoes (I’ve read more than my fair share of those), what progress they made with their projects, to even porn stars writing about what they did all day (This I read ‘cause I found the thing extremely entertaining in a ‘he’s a jackass’ kind of way).
If there is anything that you wish to know, and I literally mean anything at all, all you really need is a little curiosity and a net connection. (Along with of course a device that could use such a connection, followed by a Google search. You know, if you were wondering) Now picture this; a friend asks another if he’d seen a particular movie, listened to a particular song, seen that latest viral video (for shame Miley Cyrus!), read that particular book or not. The friend replies with ‘Sorry, never heard of it.’ And what happens next? The person puts on an expression of shock so blown out proportions it’s as if you were a Neanderthal that wasn’t supposed to be let out of his cave. His eyebrows riding his forehead like you’d imagine riding….. Err, never mind. And he’d say, and I quote ‘You haven’t seen it?’
Picture the same thing in a group of friends. Now think about what just happened. I know for a fact that we’ve all been on both the giving and receiving end of this conversation. If you think about it for a while, you’d realize that you must have seen something that they haven’t. And the next person might have seen something that you both haven’t. (Seeing being the generalized term for all multimedia formats, because you know, typing all the action verbs together though fun while reading, gets irritating after a while).
You just can’t watch everything that’s out there. No, not even everything that’s ‘good’. Not unless of course you’ve given up hope of accomplishing something more worthwhile than learning to burp out all the English alphabets as you drink coke, becoming a connoisseur of eating chips and dips and coming up with a crash course for developing belly fat in this life. You can’t read all the novels out there, primarily because too much of it will wreck your own life’s story. And it takes time. You can’t listen to all the sad love songs, because sooner or later you’ll realize that your girlfriend has moved on and is now dating the school jock while you still cry yourself to sleep at nights.
Though I agree that everyone needs a little time off, every once in a while, it’ll only become a problem if one starts doing these things in excess. Now don’t get me wrong, learning things is still important. ‘Cause, you know, you stop learning, your life becomes stagnant, regardless of your age, that’s when you start sucking. boohoo! And whether it’s watching documentaries, reading the Dummies on Chess, or learning how to take care of leather shoes, I’m all for it. What’s not cool is indulging oneself too much. Excess being bad and what not.
So just back off the nice guy who was doing his homework and missed that oh-so-amazing soccer match last night. (Soccer ’cause my editor hates it, “It’s football” he said) Try and not get addicted to pastimes. They are called that for a reason by the way, the reason being whoever came up with it was nice enough to not call them waste-of-times. And if someone’s seen more shit than you, well then they’ll need a bigger plunger later.
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