Boring...change the channel.
Irritating...change the channel.
Annoying...change the channel.
Don't want to think about it...change the channel.
Not interested...change the channel.
Disgusting...change the channel.
I have tuned into too many things over the years I guess that my level of interest has waned a bit. I am not saying this is a bad thing. After you have spent so many hours seeing the same old thing played out in the same old way over and over again, perhaps it is better to change the channel in an effort to find something new, and if not new at least worthwhile and of good report. That isn't always easy to do these days.
Thing is there really isn't a lot of worthwhile stuff out there so you really have to make an effort to find something of good report.
I suppose that part of the reason finding something new is that I have experienced so much of it before and find the new stuff mere copies, imitations, sequels and out and out ripoffs of the previous stuff.
Sequels are o.k. if you are truly building upon the foundation and adding to the flavor of the original, but more often than not it is just someone cashing in on the popularity of the original and not putting a lot of effort into it. Think of any Hal Needham movie done the second time.
Or sometimes, someone thinks it would be a good idea to remake a classic. Trouble is it is seldom if ever as good as the original. They know this and yet they do it anyway. Why? Because they know that if the wait long enough to do the remake, they will have a new audience to play to, one that has not experienced the original and will have no basis for comparison. Do you think Pat Boone would have been anywhere near as successful with "Long Tall Sally" and "Tutti Frutti" if his audiences had heard them done by Little Richard first?
For those of you that do not get the above references, and for those that do but know of some that will not, that is my point. To the young, everything is new and it is all being experienced for the first time. It is still judged for its merit but with little baseline to compare it too it rates pretty well. How else can you explain some of the drivel out there?
For those of us that have been around the block a time or two, the bar is raised. Sadly the bar does not have to move up much to exclude 80% of what is presented in the way of T.V., movies and music.
And that leads me to a problem. My attention span (that was pretty short to begin with) has been cut in half yet again. I can scan the preset radio stations on my car faster by hand than with the scan button. I can scan T.V channels faster than anyone in the room is ready to appreciate and not experience a small case of motion sickness. I can peruse web pages faster than they are meant to be enjoyed. (Don't even bother getting me started on staff meetings.) What I am saying is I can name that tune in three notes (another obscure reference for those keeping score) and decide if it is something that I want to continue with or move on to the next object faster than Simon Cowell can make a buck, euro, or pound. (That reference was at least a little more current I hope.)
And move on is what I do best. Because I have too spend more and more time trying to locate something worthwhile, I have less and less time to spend enjoying that something worthwhile which should. This tends to drive the bar higher still in an attempt to only spend my time on the best of the best.
This behavior also tends to push me outside the typical marketing demographics. I don't seem to mind except now advertising increasingly tends to be an annoyance and intrusion more than the communal interaction intended. In other words, they don't get me and I don't get them.
Let me expand on that just a little with an example. If you search on a news item to get a little more information and it takes you to a news media web site that has an inserted video to go with the text, my advice is to just read the text. More often than not the video, even if it is interesting though short on depth, will begin with an inserted, irrelevant video advertisement. These ads have been shortened to 15 seconds usually but that seems like an unusually long amount of time to put up with to watch a 2 minute segment in this day and age. I have and will regularly hit the mute button on these ads while I wait for what I am really after, but lately I find myself hitting the back button, leaving the site entirely and searching for what I am after elsewhere. And all because 15 seconds has become too long.
It isn't has if there are no other ads being flung at us as the web page itself is usually littered with them. They are static, passive unless clicked on and mostly unobtrusive. These video inserts are more demanding because they have what is essentially a captive audience. That is they are captive only in so far as the person desires to see the content provided. Kinda like regular T.V. in that way. But I am not captive or captivated and so I "change the channel". Often.
So what is the real downside here? There is nothing wrong with trying to avoid crap in whatever form it takes.
The downside is when you get in hyper scan mode it becomes difficult to take it down a notch when you finally come across something worthwhile. It is hard to slow down to a pace that will let you appreciate what you have found let alone slow down to the point that you can immerse yourself in the topic at hand.
And sadly I find myself slowing down less often for other things besides T.V, movies and music. I find myself having a hard time slowing down for people. I mean really connecting with others without having my mind racing off in half a dozen other directions. I find that to be one of the saddest things of all. But awareness is one of the first steps to recovery so I am putting forth effort to keep myself in the present as much as possible and especially around others.
That doesn't mean I will turn off my crap meter, it just means I wont be so quick to hit the next button when I am dealing with a human.
Non-humans on the other hand don't have any feelings so they shouldn't feel offended when I "change the channel".
This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.
