[Journal] I’m so tired of the chatter…

Maybe I’m getting cranky in my old age, but I’ve been realizing lately that I waste a lot of time on the Internet engaging in “chatter”… like posting comments on peoples’ facebook updates, or writing responses to news posts on Fark.com, or commenting on message boards pertaining to skepticism.

Here’s the problem I’m having — it’s all a colossal waste of time, and it’s causing me to form a lot of shallow relationships that don’t matter instead of pursuing real ones that do. It’s also taking up a large amount of my free time that could be spent doing things I actually want to do, like contributing to my blog here, working on one of my many writing projects, or developing my relationships with others.

So, I’ve decided that I’m going to take some time off from commenting on forums and playing around on social networks and attempt to gain some sense of perspective. Even though a lot of the stuff I publish on this blog is rather trivial and unimportant, I’ve decided it’s not chatter, because its my primary purpose in posting is to keep myself writing so my skills can stay sharp. I suppose writing in a private journal would have then same effect, but I benefit from believing that people might actually learn something from whatever I say.

I also will allow myself to comment on a forum if a) the content is original and b) I am interacting with the author in a manner that is exchanging ideas, not chatter.

While I realize that this might seem preachy, it’s not intended to be; putting this down in writing is meant to keep me accountable.

Now if I could only find a way to get so fired up about the massive amounts of time I waste on online video…

Writing Scraps

by Sean J. Jordan