Mental Consumption vs. Production

So, I’ve been living without internet at my residence for about a two weeks now. That is not to say that I have not used the internet for that time. That is very apparent from my daily blog posts. Yet, I don’t think I’ve really had the opportunity to feel the repercussions of life without internet at home. I have not really found enough time to sit around and wish I had internet. On that same note, I have not really had the free time to do the things I planned to do once I was free from my personal distractions of the internet.

I have given my decision some more thought over the last few days. In the end, my decision to go without internet can be summed up with the concept of what I call Mental Consumption vs Production. I don’t know if that’s an actual thing, seeing as I made it up in my head, but allow me to explain. (I feel like I’m just restating someone else’s thoughts. My apologies, if that is the case.)

One of the main reasons why I wanted to go without internet was to make more time for reading. I quickly found out that I can easily find other things to distract me from reading. That thing in this case was anime. I realized then, that anime shows are simply animated stories, essentially an animated novel. This is really no different than reading. In the end, all these things could be grouped into the category of mental consumption.

Mental consumption can be used to describe anything that your mind is taking in: Music, Television, Audiobooks, Books. I’m not saying that mental consumption is a bad thing. I think, like food for the body, the mind needs to consume healthy thoughts and information. To continue with that metaphor, the mind cannot just eat and eat to stay in shape. It must also exercise. Thus, we arrive at the notion of mental production.

After further consideration, I have reorganized my thoughts and my plan. This is where I hope the main bulk of my time will be placed in lieu of no home internet. I want to create more things: Poetry, music (lyrics, vocals, instrumentals), visual art, videos, random crafts (is that mental production?). As I stated before, I have not yet found the time to deeply immerse myself in any of these things. So, my brain has an imbalance of all mental consumption and no creative mental production. Sad.

My plan to have no internet still stands. It is not a permanent thing, but will remain in effect until I am able to redistribute my time to allow for more mental productivity. I will still continue to feed my thoughts, hopefully on the daily, and I think my preferred method of consumption is reading. Must… limit… anime.

Written Records

I started packing for my upcoming move. Clothes, books, board games, and random other crap. I don’t think I fully realized until today how much stuff I have to pack. Good thing I’m starting early.

I’ve accumulated a bunch of stuff over the years, so there’s a lot of clutter to sort through. Years of college notes and notebooks, old poems and lyrics, and my cardboard box of precious memories. I’ve had a bad habit of clinging on to things I don’t actually need. I’m trying to break that habit, but it’s a tough habit to break. With every other thing I decide to throw away, I find myself thinking, “There goes that memory forever.”

In order to decide what to keep and what to toss, I had carefully inspect everything I’ve kept. I automatically knew I would keep all the birthday and valentine’s day cards that I’ve already decided to store. I scanned through some old brochures and documents, and I could not decide why I had kept them in the first place. I threw those away. Then I read through my old writings.

Reading over my poems and old journals was unbelievably satisfying. I was brought right back into the stories that originally inspired my words. The people, the circumstances, and the emotions all came back to me so vividly. I was back in my friend’s basement, or my high school’s hallway, or my old bedroom. It was all so clear once again. It was honestly amazing.

As I looked into my past, I could see how I’ve changed and how I’ve stayed the same over the years. I uncovered writings all the way back to middle school, with the bulk being from high school. Yet even in middle school, I was already writing about things I still write about today. Faith, family, and of course… girls. My writing “skills” improved over the years, but my writing style and personality remained relatively unchanged. I could track the development of my sarcastic writing humor throughout my high school work. I was laughing with (or was it at?) myself.

Though I wrote about the same general topics, the messages have changed quite a bit. Before, I would have a pessimistic, negative, perhaps even pitiful view on things. This was especially apparent in my writings pertaining to girls and relationships. While I wrote mostly humorous, light-hearted poems, I did have a fair amount of more serious pieces. And, for the most part, these were kind of depressing. At least, the ones that stick out in my recent memory.

Faith. My poems about Faith, though scarce, were fueled by an atheist perspective. I used to be “anti-religious”, considering the whole thing just a bunch of fake hoopla. As many of you know, I’ve changed quite a bit in that regard. Yet, even today in my Christian spoken word pieces, I discuss many of the problems I saw in the Church when I was an atheist.

Family. The mold from which I came. The reason I am who I am today (for the most part). I don’t write too much about my family anymore. Then again, I don’t really write too much about anything other than my Faith. (I actually plan to change this soon! :D) Regardless, I still think about my family a lot. Based off my past writing, I’d say my family is pretty much the same. And the same annoyances and conflicts that pushed me to journal over 10 years ago are still occurring today. Well, at least things didn’t get any worse?

Girls. Ohhhh boyyyy. The topic of discussion of almost all my poems. Girls were on my mind a lot in high school. Like… all the time. I guess this might be the norm for a high school guy, though. But man! My poems about girls sure are entertaining. Most were silly haiku rich in sarcasm, irony and perversion. But, there are a handful of very serious ones, and these are my favorite poems of all. Sadly, I don’t think a single one of my poems discussing girls has a happy ending. Having never been in a relationship, along with my low self-confidence and self-imposed loser status, I tended to have a hopeless outlook on being in a relationship. Asking a girl out on a date, let alone actually going steady with one, seemed like an impossible feat accomplished only by the coolest of all dudes. The female mind was a battlefield on which I had no hope of survival. My future looked very bleak. And very girl-less.

I’m glad to say that I no longer feel this way (Thank God. SHEESH). I’ve learned a lot over the years and my perspective has changed to a much more optimistic one. But, I’ll save that discussion for another time.

I realize that I would not be able to recall these memories without my writings. Granted, I also have a ridiculously horrible memory. Still, I am glad that I kept these papers and notebooks over the years. What’s more, I’m so grateful that I even had a journal or wrote poems at all. I know some people find it kind of weird to do. I think it’s one of the best and most valuable things I could have done for myself, and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. I just wonder how much I’ll change (or won’t change) in another ten years.