It's temping to frame this as a problem particular to modern living, whatever that is. To suggest that the conveniences afforded us by technology and mature, industrialized capitalism are somehow to blame, that if we had been born one or two or three centuries earlier, it would be so much simpler to buckle down and focus on the things that really matter to us, like creativity and self-improvement.
But that's an easy answer. There were plenty of distractions available to people pre-Netflix, even if there may have been a lot more boring work to do as well. If we are to compare ourselves to people in the past, we should at least choose people similarly situated. If that means we look at how the wealthiest citizens of history chose to spend their time, so be it. We have far more in common with them than we do with the average illiterate peasant.
If you wanted to make yourself feel bad (and who doesn't?), you would point out that, while those ancient lettered ones may have indulged just as freely in entertainments, they were hardly the vapid, sugary dross that passes for pop culture these days. Instead, they relied on the fine arts: reading beautiful poetry, taking in moving plays, and listening to sophisticated music that probably uses more than three chords. Whereas we spend our precious time in endless 3-minute chunks of forgettable streaming video, songs that all rely on the same beat, and TV shows so repackaged and redundant that you could rewatch one by mistake and never even realize it.
Fine, I guess, but it's not like all that old stuff disappeared. It's all still there, and just as easy to access. It's just not what most people are into. So if your priority is being relevant, then yeah, you shouldn't listen to opera. But there are still these people who bemoan our lack of sophistication, who at the same time truly relish the least sophisticated offerings of our times.
This isn't a new phenomenon. Even back in the day -- any day -- you could find erudite, sophisticated members of society ready and willing to castigate the youth for engaging in silly buggers. It isn't that they didn't have crappy, empty art in the past, just as we do today. It's that the crappy stuff didn't survive, so our perspective on the past is rose-tinted indeed.
There are balances to be struck. Moderation in all things being essential to leading a non-miserable life, you can't spend all your time enjoying content. Even the finest literature will ruin you if you do nothing else. But even once you've carved out an appropriate amount of time in your life to devote to entertaining yourself, you aren't done evaluating. You need to decide what, exactly, is worth your time. Separating the wheat from the chaff is good and important. All the more important, I think, if you intend to do produce something of your own.
I often struggle to balance my time between creating and consuming art. Consuming gets the lion's share of my free time, and I only feel a little bad about that. It's far easier to do so in social contexts than creating can be, and building and maintaining strong social connections is probably the single most important factor in not being miserable. On top of that, I've always understood, intuitively, that the art we create is, at its most essential, a reinterpretation of all of the art we have ever consumed, run through the filter of our experiences and feelings (and skills, of course). So, being that consuming art directly feeds whatever mechanisms we use to create more, this is a good thing! On top of that, many of my friends give me art recommendations all of the time; comparatively few actively inquire about my creative status. So it just makes sense that I'd devote more brainpower to consuming than creating.
(Don't take this is a repudiation for not encouraging me to create more often, but feel free to repudiate me for not creating more often.)
So I have a huge list of games, books, movies, TV shows, music, comics, blogs, podcasts, et al. to get through, in order to satisfy my friends and myself, depending. And an equally long list of creative projects, any of which could be, on its own, a deeply rewarding experience. And I'm lucky to be in a position where I have the free time and energy to really decide what kind of person I want to be, in this regard. And though the creative stuff takes a bit more energy, initiative, and organization to get going, and is a little lonelier in the process, its rewards are consistently higher, and nothing draws people to you more than having created something. So it's just a matter of seeing the creation as another way to distract yourself, and fill in the blanks as appropriate.
Looking back over the history of this blog (which, in some ways, has really run its course, and persists mostly out of the bedrock of human nature, habit), I'm struck by how full of moment each and every post title strives to be. And how, every few months or so, I get it in my head that it's time to write a grandiose declaration of self-definition. I've written almost two hundred of these things, and let's look at some of the titles in question:
My first post, "turmeric, the golden spice, auspices; or, the poet as master of his own identity". Nice.
A month later, "shadows of a new life". I'm obsessed with both seeing and shaping here. I haven't gotten away from it, apparently.
Two months from there, "shining, shimmering, splendid". Dreams of returning to the glory days of the past (my own past).
The next year, "graduating to gratuity". On gracefully giving up on our dreams.
It goes on...."a path to many selfs," for instance. An obsession with identity which is getting to be a little embarrassing. And it isn't just constrained to the blog.
I will probably never understand identity— Scott Hansen (@Lithros) August 20, 2016
So I don't want to, or need to, keep doing that. I want to write, and read, and watch, and play, and laugh with friends when I can. But as for the other stuff, which was good, and valuable, and helped me grow, I'm grateful for it, and grateful it's in the past. And with this post's title, I bid that self farewell.
Onward together.
