Time Well Spent

In an effort to quell a reader revolt, I decided to write a post about wasting time. Then, I thought, I’d look up that article from Wired about the efficiency guru that I’d seen about seven hours ago while wasting time at a newsstand. Then, a page into the online article, I went back to the blogger page and started writing my post about wasting time. I wrote two sentences and got sick of it. I went outside and got my iPod out of my car because although I've listened to the new Radiohead, I haven't really absorbed it yet.

I walked to my car at the end of the street, staring at the Griffith Park Observatory off in the distance. The one in Rebel Without a Cause, which I rented last summer after reading an article that made fun of people who hadn’t seen it. I came back, sat down and looked at the two sentences. They still sucked. So then I went back to that article about efficiency. The efficiency guru recommends breaking down everything you have to do into do-able actions. Irony of ironies, then, that I’d sat down to write a post about wasting time and here I was, being taken off the task by an alluring article about efficiency!

It should be self-evident that the internet is the biggest enabler of my time eroding habit. I am the junkie and the internet is my old buddy from around the way who gets the really good shit. Even when my entire day is spent in front the computer, my contact lenses drying out from its infernal glow, the first thing I do when I get home is open up Firefox. Couldn’t I be out jogging or volunteering? Christ, I'm young. I'm well-educated. There is a rock somewhere that should be climbed, by me. I should also be more involved in the political process, because the problem is not the politicians but the assholes who do nothing.

Here's the rub: if I did Habitat for Humanity, when would I find time to read? Don’t tell anyone, but I still haven’t read Madame Bovary. I never finished Moby Dick either, it’s sitting on top of Infinite Jest on my coffee table. That's okay because nobody ever finishes Infinite Jest; the important thing is to have it in your home so you can talk about it to others who have tried and failed (the footnotes alone, bollucks!)

My lack of efficiency is the main reason behind my not getting cable television. Many a hungover morning, it’s been my chief desire just to turn on Sportcenter and let it wash over me. I've been meaning to get into The Shield or Mad Men or Robot Chicken or any of the other shows that make up the so-called second golden age of television in which we are currently living, but I have too many books to not finish and blog posts not to write and movies to nod off to after the first half hour (and contained in those DVD’s are hours and hours of extras, which is the reason I bought the DVD in the first place).

One must also pay attention to YouTube, for one must have the cultural currency to spend on the water cooler conversations around the non-existent water cooler in the office. However, one must also pay attention to The World, because American culture is one of rampant solipsism. One must be able to speak about Tay Zonday and Mahmoud Ahmedinijad with equal fluency.

Therefore, I will wrap it up. I'll save any more casually-dropped references to Great Literature and effortless turns of phrase so you can write your congressman or cut a record on your Mac.

But first, do yourself a favor and watch this R. Kelly video.