As of 1:30pm EDT today, it will be a full week since I've had a cigarette. I've still got a long way to go (the rest of my life, as it turns out) but it's a start.
To preface the rest of the post, you need to understand a little about how my mornings work now. I typically get up a little after 6am, feed the cat, have some cereal, and get Steph's coffee going (coffee and I no longer get along since I started taking meds for my ADHD - and by don't get along I mean they turn me into a 230 lb. hummingbird which scares the villagers quite a lot. On that note, I have lost about 20 lbs. yay!). With that all done, it's usually somewhere between 6:45 and 7:10, which means I have somewhere between 15 and 40 minutes to kill until Steph asks me to play fashion adviser. You may think I'm joking. You're probably saying that asking my opinion on fashion is like asking Taylor Swift what it takes to make a long-lasting relationship or asking Billy Ray Cyrus how to get that second hit song. I don't disagree with your views on that, but it's true, and for all that I've talked about it, it's not what we're really here to discuss. It's that 15 to 40 minutes.
During this time, this half hour average, I'm on the internet. I see none of you are surprised. I check my Facebook and Twitter accounts for personal messages, sure, but that doesn't take long. What I spend most of my time doing is reading any articles of interest off the first two sites, and then following that up with more neat stuff off Tumblr (which is just a great thing) and follow that up with some YouTube videos. Lately, between all these things, a large connection has formed - an overarching theme, and I would present them to you as I found them.
If you ever get a chance to listen to any of the oldschool youtubers out there, you'll tend to hear one name that crops up, from most, if not all, of these people. The guy who, in a very real way, paved the way for all the other successful acts. This guy is Ze Frank (Ze rhymes with 'hay'). Curious about who this was, I looked him up. Below is the video I watched.
It's pretty long, but this is 21 minutes well spent if you have the time. If you don't, it's about connecting. Connecting with people via the internet. What you and I are doing right now, if we're honest.
A few days after I watched this, Time posted their cover article which can be viewed, if you have a subscription, here. It's on the so-called millennial generation, and just like every generation that my generation has ever heard about, they're a bunch of narcissists. Unique to this bunch though: they're on the internet. Always. He offers one stat in the free version (I too lack a Time sub), people in their 20's have 3 times the rate of narcissistic personality disorder than those 65 and older. Really? We could've done this same study 40 years ago and gotten the same result. Folks in their 20's haven't learned much about the real world just yet. I remember, quite vividly, my great awakening. I was living in Kalamazoo, working at Target, my hours had just been cut, my sister had just moved out, and I had deposited my paycheck. Rent was due in a couple days, and I had a choice: pay it, or buy food. Nothing looked the same afterward. If you were wondering, I paid the rent.
The interesting thing though is all the talk about how millennials live on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Next up is a video I saw yesterday. Tweeted by noted British comedian Stephen Fry (you may remember him as Booth's therapist from Bones) the following video is an excerpt from David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement speech to Kenyon College set to a special made movie, and entitled "This is Water".
At the risk of appearing to over-sell something, you will not ever regret spending 9 minutes of your life watching this video. Considering that it has been viewed 4.2 million times in the last week, it would seem some folks agree with me on that.
So if you're keeping score at home, we listened to Ze Frank talk about connection, to Joel Stein talk about the internet connected millennial generation, and now to David Foster Wallace, the latter of whom died before any of the rest was created, and yet it is his message that simultaneously surpasses and binds together the first two.
So where we go from here? To my cat, of course. After watching this last video yesterday morning, I sat on the couch thinking about it for a moment when Lucy came over. As most cats, her in particular, like to do, she flopped down just out of easy reach, but clearly still expected to be petted. Having grown tired of this game many years (and cats) ago, I leaned forward, picked her up, and sat her on the couch next to me. She then crawled onto my lap, laid down, and purred away, seeming quite happy.
"Is this us?" I asked. "Are we metaphorical cats, laying down just out of easy reach, saying 'here I am' with each tweet and facebook post? And are we trying to establish a real connection by hoping that someone picks us up, and moves us to where we wanted to be all the while?"
I don't have an answer to any of that. As Hank and John Green (you may find them on YouTube as the Vlogbrothers) like to say, the truth resists simplicity.
