Okay,
so I was thinking, there’s this… wait, that’s my phone. Okay, my team’s up two nothing in the first,
good. But anyway, I was- the door. Who’s at the door? Oh no, it’s the Lawn Rangers again. How many
times do you have to shout obscenities in Mandarin out the window before they
get the message? I’ll just duck in here until
they’re… Dang, my phone again. Oh, it’s just a video of a Panda playing a
banjo.
Where
was I?
Here’s
the thing: Is it just me, or have we lost like 75% of our attention span? I mean, you can’t even have a conversation without
the other person donning that faraway gaze two minutes in. My last attempt went something like this:
Me: Hey, what’s up?
Them: Nuthin.
Me: Nothing huh?
Them:
Yep.
Me: Really?
Nothing at all?
Them: Have you seen that video of that Panda
playing a banjo?
I
can’t remember the last time I saw anyone focus on anything for more than a few
minutes, unless it was binge-watching the latest flavor-of-the-week Netflix
release, or immersed in some video game.
Engage in conversation? Pooh-pooh the thought. Having a barbeque? Better collect the phones at the door. Trying to organize a neighborhood clean-up
day at the local park? Good luck with
that. Unless there’s Wi-Fi.
No,
we have – through conditioning, apathy, or some combination of the two – pretty
much lost our ability to think about one
thing for more than fifteen minutes, twenty tops. Yet we are captivated by the most trivial, inane,
and immaterial of shiny objects; it’s like junk food for the brain.
A
series of tornados tears through the Midwest sucking a few hundred people – and
a handful of tractors - up into the vortex, but that’s soon forgotten when some
reality show chucklehead tearfully reveals she was forced to eat lima beans as
a child. Life-changing events are occurring
all around us, often right on our doorstep, but social media is abuzz over a
couple of celebrity’s Twitter feud.
Some
have suggested that we’re being manipulated into focusing on some things, to
distract us from others. And, they’re
probably right - to some degree. But, we
can only ascribe so much blame to others when we are ultimately responsible for
the choices we make in where to invest our time, energy, and emotions.
So,
that’s it. In closing, I’d just like to
say- WHOA! A METAPOD JUST SPAWNED LIKE 600 YARDS FROM HERE! Gotta run!
Stay focused out
there.
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