Black Friday Blues

Black Friday Blues are a very distinct set of emotions. These emotions hit my consciousness like a Mike Tyson punch to the head once a year. My name is Ross and I am addicted to technology.

If you could see my setup you would realise how deep my addiction has set in. I have wonderful headphones linked up to specialised hifi equipment attached to my Macbook. My TV room is full of gaming, streaming, hifi and AV devices. The pleasure it gives me to link up a piece of high fidelity tech has become a crutch. And now the internet throws half price deals at me – it’s like offering an alcoholic a tequila shot and a beer chaser – half price happy hour. Sheesh.

I still haven’t figured out how I am going to avoid/ignore/manage the deals that will barrage my inbox all day today and tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

The perfect website for creatives?

I think I have found it.

If you are a struggling artist, you might be able to get funding/support for your work, Kickstarter-style at Drip (https://d.rip/discover)

The site is owned by Kickstarter and it just re-launched – it aims to support people (rather than projects ala Kickstarter) with a focus on creatives.

Right now it is in an invite only launch phase, but when this opens up to the public, it will be awesome. I encourage the dedicated writers and creatives out there to try and get support through Drip one day.

What is your life’s map going to be?

For anyone interested in maps I would highly recommend this a16z podcast: link

Maps are diagrammatic representations of our world around us. Unknown areas are blank spaces, known areas are full of available detail.

As a species, we humans are becoming predominantly sensor carrying data creators. Not just our watches and our phones attached to our bodies, but our cars and our homes are causing tidal waves of information to flow and to be captured.

One of the consequences is a mapping of life as we know it. You are most likely creating a map of your life online and in ever more detail.

You also have a say in what it says about you.

Will the world ever fill up?

A common refrain on many of humanity’s problems is that there are simply too many people. Flora and Fauna will never be prioritized over humans, and with an ever growing pool of humans the pressure on the environment will lead to widespread catastrophe.

In many respects of course this is true and obvious. Forests are shrinking and animal species are going extinct. However, Humans don’t just extract from a fixed set of resources. We can also create new resources through invention. Check this awesome article for more info.

I think the future of wildlife is not so doomed but also not so wild. Unfortunately more like a zoo than a Serengeti, I think we are headed for a strong culture of managing land, technology and investment for flora and fauna to flourish.

Like it or not, We as a species are not going to stop taking over wild lands, but we are also not going to stop innovating.

Gaming

I am 35 years old and I have been playing video games almost as long as I have been reading.

35 is in fact the average age of a gamer in the world (according to Google). As an industry, gaming has in my lifetime grown to twice the size of movies and music COMBINED….think about that….combined!

And yet I constantly have doubts and questions around gaming:

Am I too old to play games?
Why do I enjoy games so much?
Is there any art in video games?
How much is too much?
Are they a waste of time?

I think the driver behind these questions is my new young family, and the fact that playing video games is still a relatively new hobby compared to reading a book or even watching a movie.

Responsibilities, and taboo work away at my conscience.

However, as a pastime it still delights and amazes me. Not gonna stop. Nope. Sorry….Moderate yes….Stop, no.

Web strategy

Unfortunately, we don’t have one by default.

Whether we are publishing, socialising, photographing, working – our default setting seems to be to just use a device as it is given to us, and without discrimination to pay attention to any and all notifications that show up on the screen.

The thing is, just like any tool, the internet can be used in the wrong way and achieve unwanted outcomes. Wasted time, wasted money, misinformation to name a few.

We all have exposure to the internet, whether we like it or not. Therefore forming a strategy to turn it to your advantage is worth it. This goes for the individual, the family and the corporation.

Worth noting also that on the internet privacy is dead, so “default public” is the best stance on anything web-based.

Conscious watching of TV

When I was younger (I’m still incredibly young of course, despite my grey hair, stiff back, and penchant for listening to jazz)….but when I was younGER I used to watch TV by default. I had no decision to make, I had nothing else pressing my time. I just had myself to think about. Quite recently it has become different. Others are relying on me and TV is now something to manage – just like Music, Facebook (which I eventually quit), cell phone notifications (quit) and computer games (quitting).

I need to watch TV with a little more purpose and a little more constraint. This is probably stating the obvious, but I do find it difficult not to just consume movies and series every night – especially with today’s binge watching options. I love literature and film, and I love technology so the streaming thing would take up a lot of my time if i let it. It’s not as if I don’t let myself watch anything – Film and series are fantastic and worthy art in my life. My point is simply that it is a conscious thought now to watch these things, all with the aim of productivity and creativity. Before it was just a default setting.

If you are struggling for time to be productive, start with thinking about the things you do as a default setting. In my case it started with registering Facebook, cell phone notifications and computer games. Now it is TV. Some need to be stopped, others managed, others nothing at all needs to be done – but it’s a useful exercise.

Creativity through simplification

Some recent steps I have taken to improve my focus and save time for what matters:

No more Facebook. Account deleted completely
No more gaming – selling console
Re-finding my Kindle – purpose built for reading, this is the gadget that keeps giving. You can’t be a good writer without being a good reader
Whittling down my internet accounts. As well as Facebook, I had Twitter, Instagram, three different email addresses, other blogs, and the list goes on. I realized that the reason I wasn’t creating as much as I wanted was not a lack of accounts, connections with friends or lack of tools…rather it is a lack of focus. Fewer accounts and gadgets – focus on those you actually need.
Fixing up my house and my office – I’m not good at this but when I try to fix stuff, it helps my sense of satisfaction and consequent focus no end.

The next step is to partake more in communities of like minded people in the flesh. I’m thinking writers groups, and arty types who I don’t seem to have in my life at the moment.

Life is a journey not a destination, right?

Streaming and ownership

If I can consume media with purpose then I will be happy. Too often though, I feel like media is force fed to me like a scene out of A Clockwork Orange.

I have decided to make a change in music subscription services – from Google Play Music to Tidal. New MQA Masters catalogues on Tidal are a factor, as are my future plans to integrate with a service such as Roon. Roon lets you interact with the music you listen to like we used to with CDs and LPs.

All of this is a rather futile effort to mitigate against the fact that when we stream our music or TV or movies, we no longer own the content. It’s a mindset from another time I guess but to pay for a service rather than a piece of art seems like a poor deal.

At least it is convenient and works on my phone though.

The tech urge within

For some reason the world of audiophile technology and tech hardware has become extremely refined in its marketing of products. The premium that must be paid to own a new high grade audiophile amplifier is insane. And yet….

And yet I want one as if it is going to cure my human condition. I don’t understand this urge. Why do I feel so intensely that I have to be part of this tiny group of people that spend their children’s school fees on audio equipment? Do I honestly believe the music will sound THAT much better? No. Sigh…..

I think the truth is that there are many industries that have tapped into this tribal urge to belong – Apple being the most obvious. An iPhone essentially does the same thing as a phone one tenth its price – and yet the company’s revenues go up and up. People want to spend money on things which make them feel part of a group.

The trick is to decide what will make a tangible difference to life, and what is merely hype.

The latest iPhone will not out-perform my Motorola to the point that my life improves. And neither will a new amplifier improve the performance of my headphones.

The pull is strong indeed though. It’s like these companies are using the Jedi force to extract my wallet from my pocket, and it is all I can do to push it back in.

That’s my consumer culture rant for the day. Back to work 🙂