Falling Behind.

This happens all the time... unfortunately.
I start the semester out strong and decide to keep up on the blogging unlike the semester previous. I failed again. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. As for coming short on an assignment, I feel bad. I believe that as an upper division college student I should be held to a high standard. But in general, I am so sick of my computer. I hate how much visual stimulation I need to be satisfied, not only that, but to just hold my attention. Honestly, there have been a number of blog posts that some of you have done that I didn't bother reading because... well... there were no cool pictures. This depresses me greatly.

About halfway through this semester I read an article on NPR that explored the ways in which readership is changing. All of these changes were in the direction of needing more stimulation and less downtime, or plot development, or anything that isn't overly stimulating. Suddenly I realized that that article described me all to well...

...and then we started reading Beckett. His style caught my attention, but it was hard to read. Nothing happened! There were no overly saturated pictures! No poorly animated GIFS! How could I even think to read this!

I fear that in such an age of visual stimulation and loss of patience, Beckett will never be read. Nor will the millions of others that require a bit of work. We must keep literature alive. It does not seem so now, but at some point this will be a plea of desperation.

I don't really buy this sort of study that goes on to understand the arising language of texting and other modern technological mediums. All I see is a movement towards the demotic and a push towards chaos.

To be quite honest, this is how I felt about Finnegans Wake. I couldn't stand it. Sure, there are some very interesting, beautiful, flowing lines, and I can also appreciate the wholly aesthetic approach that one sometimes needs when handling the text, but I get the same feelings about FW as I do about texting and twitter, etc. I know, I'm being pessimistic and dark, but I can't do anything else. My soul bids me. I can't wait to forget about checking my email, and wasting time on cracked.com, and reading countless forums on rockclimbing.com. I can't wait to write something NOT in a word processor, or in this strange QWERTY system. My trained fingers can cruise along at blinding speeds and I don't even have to think about it. They must be betraying me! Even as I "write" this they are jumping around quickly, I just think, they do the rest. What else are they doing that I'm not aware of!!???!!

I can't wait to retrain myself to be patient, and to be able to focus and be truly introspective again. It has been too long. Deep breathes help.

Until then I will try to add some quality blogs before beginning the process.