Time Goes By Too Fast? Blue Öyster Cult, Pascal, and Ben Affleck May Save Us Yet

“All Rome rejoices in your return, Caesar.  There are many matters that require your attention.” – Gladiator

Memes – a tool of attention control?  Or cats with eated cookies?

One curse of modern life is . . . always being in a rush.  A hurry.  Where is the time?  How do you expect to do that?  It’ll take hours to do that?

And it’s a constant refrain now – we end up at midnight wondering . . . where did the day go?  The rush?  It adds to stress, and stress clearly causes health problems over time.

Yeah, that time we don’t have enough of.  Where did all of our time go, anyway?

I seem to remember that Blue Öyster Cult (in the song Burning for You) promised me . . . “Time everlasting, time to play B-sides . . . “

So, where is my time to play B-sides?  (Historical note:  In order to hear a stupid song you liked, it was required to buy either a full album, or to buy a “single.”  The “single” cost less, and had the song you really wanted to hear.  On the other side of the popular song was the “b-side” – generally a song that wasn’t very popular, and never would be very popular.  Thus, if you had time to play b-sides, you were wealthy with time.  Now you can just go to the Internet and have any song ever recorded played for you instantaneously.)

Television

The real issue now is that every moment of every day can be filled with media:  YouTube®, Netflix©, Amazon Prime Video™, Hulu©, HBOGO®.  Those are just the video services, which doesn’t include the television your television has recorded for you to watch later.

But if it were just videos, we’d be okay.  Virtually every time I type this, either YouTube® is providing background music, or one of the movies that I watch as background noise (The Accountant® is one that I like a lot, and Batman vs. Superman™ is another – don’t judge me for my Affleck Affection Affliction – my doctors says it might be curable).

Now, however, we can watch an entire television season (via binge watching) in several days – creating an immersive event that can be disorienting.

When The Mrs. and I first started watching “Lost” on DVD, well, there were several 3AM nights because we couldn’t stop watching.  “Just one more episode . . .”

Social Media

Then we add in interactive online experiences – FaceBorg®, Twitttttterrrr©, SnapGram™.  These are experiences engineered to grab your attention.  Twitter shows you a notification when it wants you to see the notification to maximize your engagement.  There’s nothing random about these web services.  And you’ve probably heard this before, but if they’re not charging you to do it, you’re the product.  With these social media services, you are completely the product.  FaceBird© expected to make $27 from the data it harvested . . . from each user.  Who paid?  Who knows?  Let’s just say your late night searches have drawn . . . some attention)

Not pictured:  Cambridge or Stanford.

Cambridge and Stanford (the universities, not the two dudes named Cambridge and Stanford that were Muppets®) did a study, and found that with 10 likes FaceBlog© knows you better than a work colleague.  150 likes?  They know you better than your parents know you.  300 likes?  They can beat the Persians at Thermopylae.  Just kidding.  They do, however, know you better than your spouse.  And everyone knows the Persians are still on MySpace®.

Only this many likes and then FaceBlock® says . . . THIS IS SPARTA!

And if they know you better than your spouse?  They can certainly figure out your moods, the things that will get and keep your attention.  Why?  Their income depends on your attention.

The News

The news is becoming ever less based in truth and more and more polarized.  So, the news isn’t only fake, it’s biased.  Examples?  After Trump was nominated for President, a news reporter did a straight news story that Trump had asked a woman with a crying baby to leave a campaign rally.  Did he do it?  Yes.  Was he kidding?  Well, yes.  Humor is a powerful way to connect with a crowd – watching video of the event later, it was pretty obvious that it was a joke.

Both sides do it.  It was reported that a “doctor” had reviewed Hillary Clinton and found that she had some form of cerebral palsy.  Clearly, that would be devastating for her bid for the presidency.  Clearly, there’s no evidence of the palsy post-election.

So, the news becomes polarized like a 120 volt outlet, all charged up to make you care passionately about things you’ve never heard about before.

Availability

All of the above are available to you everywhere and anytime.  I can watch a movie on a tablet in bed while I check my phone to see how many people liked my last Tweeet®.  It used to be (in the long-before time) that this level of immersive and up to date media was available only in limited locations.  Now?  Anywhere.  Work.  Working out.  Driving to work.  Driving home.  At dinner.  And throw your work e-mail on top of that so you can read the thought your boss had at 2am when he woke up to let the dog out.

Result?

• You feel rushed – you have eliminated downtime. Back during the Revolutionary War, learning about the results of a battle might take weeks.  Now?  When ISIS was attacking in Iran halfway around the world from here, there were nearly-live videos uploaded to YouTube®.  And we can watch the Kardashians doing . . . well, whatever parasitical thing they’re doing today.  (I’m not saying that they’re exactly like human tapeworms, but there are a lot of unsettling coincidences . . . .)
• Your ideas never have time to develop? How could they?  They’re always being trampled by the ideas and opinions of others, couched in the most emotional manner possible to elicit the largest surge of anger or fear they can muster.
• You lose the ability to focus and concentrate – there’s always some media begging for your attention at the periphery of your consciousness. Check that email – it might be important!  (Hint:  it might be important once a month.)
• Shopping – for anything, anytime. Your commercial desires can be met instantly.  Need to order ammunition for an AK at 8AM?  Sure!  Need to order posters for a protest parade at a podium?  Sure!
• Boredom with the mundane. Mundane literally means “Earthly.”  I can co-pilot a TIE® fighter with Darth Vader©.  I can grab a YouTube© video showing Russian teens at the top of the tallest building in Moscow.  Live view a rocket launch?    What can awe and inspire a generation that has experienced so many events virtually?  Oh, wait, you search for ever more esoteric adventures.  And you’ll find them – but none of them will occur around your location.
• Video games, where you can expend hours achieving great goals, saving civilizations, destroying enemy fleets, founding empires. Great, pre-programmed goals.  Other people’s goals.  Goals that aren’t yours, and, when accomplished, aren’t at all real.
• Preoccupation with news that has no impact on you, and that you have no control over, yet about which you are made to feel deeply that you’re willing to fight the other side to the death.   Seems legit.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

This is Blaise Pascal – who had a nose larger than any ship in the current Canadian Navy, but wasn’t quite as smart as Newton.  This irritates the French.  Note the Blue Öyster Cult symbol in the background . . . Pascal was a rocker!

• Mindset that our activity is our accomplishment.   Our accomplishment is our accomplishment.
• The mathematician Blaise Pascal said (roughly, this is my translation of what I remember he said in French because I’m too lazy to go to my library to look it up – heck, I even marked this passage when I first read it and am too lazy to go and check, but I’ll get close enough because, well, I’m John Wilder) “Activity distracts us, which removes our attention from how wretched we are.”
• We’re being manipulated (not in a tinfoil hat way, but in a shareholder value way). FaceBrick® makes money off of you.  Off of your eyes.  Off of your attention.  Off of your habits.  It’s not a conspiracy that businesses will do whatever they can to make more money from you, even if the long term consequences aren’t in your best interest.  But it is in their best interest to put in front of you the stimulus that they figure will give them the proper response.

Coping – How do I deal with it?

• I don’t listen to the radio during my daily commute. That leaves over an hour without any media – any static.  It took about a week to get used to it, but now I use that time to think – to plan for the day or night ahead.  To think about the next post.  To think about . . . anything.  But the thoughts are my own.
• When we go out to eat as a family, phones in a pile on the table. We’re there and discuss what each other think.
• At work, I’ll sometimes take e-mail breaks – where I won’t review them for hours at a time.
• Sitting without distraction to focus on a single problem or task. I find that, for me, music helps with the focus.
• Writing daily the list of things that I really have to do. This will probably be its own post in the future.  But I use and actual pen and pencil, and put it on actual paper.  It makes a difference.

The trends are clear – barring a global war, great depression, currency collapse, or regional war near here, our attention span will be fought over on a daily basis.  If you want to accomplish anything real in your life, if you want to avoid the stress that comes with the constant emotional treadmill, you have to come up with a strategy.

Thankfully?  I have my willpower.  That, and Ben Affleck movies.  I can mostly ignore them.  Hey – is Ben Affleck . . . my B-side?

If so, that makes me wealthy, indeed!