Why do I care about all this crap?

I just finished watching the movie Bulworth. Now, I don’t think it directly came from the movie, but right now, I feel motivated to ask: Why do I care about all this crap?

I’m a kid, a teenager. I feel like I don’t even identify with people, kids, my own age. I spend hours a day on the internet, practically doing nothing. Posting tweets I hardly ever get replies to, and for what? I feel like I must, I feel inclined to use these simple but powerful tools because they are there.

My blog has been sitting here, un-updated and dormant for months at a time. It makes me mad at myself for not updating it, but why? Why do I care so much about updating a blog that no one will read, no one cares about.

Hell, I’m sitting here going over that last sentence, thinking of ways to revise it, make it more juicy. Why the hell am I doing that? Who cares but myself? Sure, it will make me happy to see my blog stats jump from the measly 6 viewers a day to possibly 10,—Crap! I’m doing it again! I like what I had of that last sentence, but I don’t know how to extend it. Why. The hell. Do I care?—It’s time to move past my blog, for which I have made numerous excuses for why I haven’t updated.

Technology

I love technology! There are endless ways to follow developments in the worlds of Twitter, Web Design, and Apple products; believe me, I have a Google Reader account full of blogs that I subscribe to on such topics.

I used to struggle with myself to read all the articles and keep myself up to date. But sometime near the end of 2008 I let it all slip. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was tired of making a chore out of reading articles wherever I was so that I could cut down on the unread count; Byline on my iPod Touch is the worst enabler of them all.

Now, the easy solution is to either Unsubscribe from all the blogs or hit the big “Mark All as Read” button. Yeah, um, I can’t get myself to do that. Why? Because I’d feel like I’m missing something interesting. I subscribed to lots of interesting blogs with interesting articles. In small numbers it was easy to consume, but now I’m subscribed to over 200 interesting blogs and there is no way to keep up.

Cutting Back

As I mentioned a couple paragraphs back, I let things slip. I now remember posting about my ‘nibbling’ (Started Nibbling) last December, so yeah, I cut back on my internet usage. I used to be, for lack of a better word, a ‘hardcore’ internet user. Yes, I did just say hardcore.

I used to visit tons of websites a day, many, doing.. stupid shit. Now, that’s not to say that I don’t continue to do stupid shit, because I know that I still do stupid shit, but back then it was Gaia Online and boring forums with little kids. Things like ‘GFX Design’ (Graphic Design) forums where little kids with pirated copies of Photoshop are all trying to 1UP each other making small, insignificant shit using pre-made brushes. I was one of them.

Now, I stick to only a few websites. Twitter, MySpace, and.. uh.. those are the big two. I’ve also started checking TechMeme, which gives me a dose of Tech news, but at a good, reasonable amount. I feel like toning it down has worked out for the better. But I still spend the same amount of time doing less stuff.

I feel like I was enjoying things more back then than I do now. But I need to evolve away from being a hardcore/power-user. I’m looking back over this post, at the points I covered in the first two paragraphs, yet haven’t covered in a good portion of the body.

I have been immersed in this crap for years, and it has distanced me from people my age. Now, I wouldn’t directly attribute my shyness to the internet, but the kids that I hang out with are not into the things I’m into. I could and have tried explaining to them tech news and why they should care, but they either become confused, or act confused to change the subject. Pretty awkward to try discussing a subject with someone when they aren’t interested in it.

So, I’m shy, and quiet.

Related posts:

1. Where I’m at with my blog