I am a commitaphobe. There. I said it.
Not to anything real, though, like a relationship, or a burrito, or a bottle of wine (the last two are more realistic of my life).. Just to anything in the media, really. You know, things that might enrich my life. I used to love reading books, and I used to be able to watch an entire film without using my hands/eyes for anything except eating popcorn/watching a film and I used to love listening to full albums on my discman. Now I can't. Well, won't.
It makes me feel sad that the ‘fast food nation’ culture I see in the media all the time is something that's afflicted me so much. But instead of stuffing a burger down my oesophagus, I read tweets instead of articles, read the Wikipedia entry of a series instead of actually watching it, and watch the film instead of reading the book (and the irony is, when you're reading a book, you can't really do much else except read the book, which makes it perfect for non-distraction.
I start reading an article, and it's too long so I give up. I am literally a victim of tl;dr, which is really sad because I did an English degree. Which means that I read huge books every week (ok, some weeks).. And then I'll open up spotify to listen to a song. Can't even be arsed to listen to the whole of a Ramones track. A RAMONES track. I used to be able to listen to their entire greatest hits album. That's at least twenty minutes. Even if it's a track I've been singing to myself for an entire day, it's still too much commitment. I might skip on average ten songs in a playlist (I have spent much time crafting).
Then I might try and watch TV. I started to watch Lost once. I got to episode two and whilst I was enjoying it, I didn't want to commit to a full episode. I actually went to watch an episode and just couldn't be arsed to sit through forty minutes of it. I instead switched to some twenty-minute comedy show that I ate and scrolled through Facebook / Twitter / Instagram/ played Bejeweled for the entirety. I watched the entire season in one sitting. It wasn't that I didn't want to watch Lost, I just didn't want to commit to the entire episode. Despite the fact that I ended up watching TV for triple the amount of time.
And don't get me started on films. I mean, you have to get to know the whole backstory, and that just seems like far too much effort. That's why I love going to the cinema. You're pretty much stuck in a dark room with no distractions. You get frowned upon for using your phone, you get funny looks for going to the loo too much and it's just not cool to get up every twenty minutes for another drink. You are literally FORCED to sit through something, perhaps they should enforce more things like that – although why I couldn't just have self-discipline for two and a half hours for something I actually want to watch I have no idea.
I'm not even convinced I could get through an entire menu in a restaurant once I've seen something I want to
[I just got distracted from this article – if you can call it that – for a full ten minutes (I was trying to look up a song I heard on BGT the other week. Didn't even find it). And now I'm looking around at everyone in the bar I'm in,the only place I can actually write without getting distractions (no Netflix and no-on dis on Facebook).
Yeah, the menu thing. That's also coming from someone who loves food.
I'm increasingly bothered about his because I regularly break away from whatever I'm doing to scroll through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, not because I'm bored, just because I need a break from the HUGE thing I'm attempting to concentrate on. And I'm not even concentrating, I'm watching Family Guy. Luckily I haven't quite got to the stage where I break away from actual conversation with a person, but I'm a bit terrified of the time when that actually happens.
We all have some kind of ADHD when it comes to technology these days, and it pisses me off no end, even though I'm aware that I'm part of the problem.
Commitment to everything rehab group, anyone?
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