Decline of Leisure, Multi-Tasking & Internet Addiction 4/21/2010

 Walter Kerr wrote The Decline of Pleasure decades ago. I read it during my sojourn in law school. I recall the thesis being that culture depends on leisure. Since I have been given an immense amount of leisure time, I have completed four short stories, what I hope is a short novel, many letters, and my writing for this journal. Whether any of this output improves our culture I will leave to others. One short story has been buzzing in my head for several years, and the (hopeful) novel took life from a problem of a screenplay written back in 2002. So leisure does permit time for creation.

All this occurred while a federal prisoner. I put my writing - except for my now orphaned law blogs - on hold to make money to pay my bills so that I might survive. Computers made work easier. Usually, I had a word processor, calendar/address book, and internet browser running. With the browser, I might have 2 - 22 tabs open at one time. Additional programs would be HotDocs and Paperport and Tweetdeck. I had to keep productivity moving and high to make a profit. How quieter is the inside of my head right now, and I think it might be living proof that multitasking 10 -16 hours a day is not a good thing. 

Whether I am an internet addict may be a good question. I heard a TV spot about this. The report focused on gamers. Even now, I worry about the e-mail piling up. Worry as in creating anxiety in me whenever I think of the subject. I also get anxious about the readers of my law blogs and how they will be waiting for updates. Sorry about that, folks. And although my criminal offense involved the internet, I actually spent more time marketing my practice with my blogs, watching TV on Hulu, playing music on Blip.fm (I could not stand working at night in silence), or communicating in e-mail. I miss Google and Wikipedia, too.

The soon-to-be-ex might say, might say I might have had more time if I had not been smoking crack in Muncie. I know I wasted time there, but I was not wasting time a year two ago. No, I got so tired of looking at a computer screen I did not want to write. Since approximately March 16, I have written 300 - 400 pages by longhand. It may be more.

[So I am right about missing papers. I started this Pretrial Detention topic at the end of April, so a month's worth of notes are missing. Probably just as well, in one way, my original name for these notes was The World's Longest Suicide Note. I was not yet done with the suicide project. sch 10/2/22.]

Now let us tie all this together. First, see if Mr. Kerr's book remains in print, and if so, buy it. We are spending too much time on our computers while not creating much. Put another, I see we have lots of information, but little knowledge and even less wisdom. We need time to think, for contemplation. No, I do not want to sound like some New Age guru clueless of the necessity of making a living. Oh boy, did I ever know about that necessity!

No, I want to talk about plain common sense. Today's rat race happens in our heads, turning the gray matter into much. I know mine had trouble slowing down, of being quiet - when smoking crack slows down your brain rather than accelerate it, then there is a problem. When a person smokes 2 packs of Camel regulars (the filterless kind), and drinks 4 - 6 liters of Coca-Cola a day (cannot abide coffee) to keep going, there is a problem. I was to take a vacation in May, which would have been my first since 2001. (Department of Wishful Thinking: that if I had made it to this vacation, I might have solved my problems without being a guest of the federal government.)  None of these show a good work/life balance. Think about that.

Weightlifters and other athletes know that they must take time off, or they injure themselves. Soldiers kept in the line of fire too long suffer serious problems. Even for the non-religious, there is sense in the Sabbath day. Working 24/7 is a recipe for disaster - a look at me, please! I do not suggest committing a crime to break you out of the rat race, quite the opposite.

Put the matter differently: what are you getting out of all this work? Take a day off to figure out that one. Ask who benefits from all this multitasking, being available for work 24 hours a day?

sch

[While checking the title I gave Kerr's book (I had it wrong), I found this The mysterious decline of our leisure time from 2021. It seems the problem I wrote of 12 years ago remains. Kerr's book remains in print. sch 10/2/22]

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