Distraction Addiction and the Internet

I subscribe to a newsletter by Eric Maisel, a psychologist who works specifically with artists. The focus of his newsletter and much of his work are about getting out of your own way and getting writing. Or painting. Or dancing. Or whatever.

His books are really good ... one of my favourite ones is "The Van Gogh Blues -- The Creative Person's Path through Depression". Even if you don't have this particular problem it is still very useful. And so are his other books, written to help us unleash all the buried creativity and turn our thoughts and emotions into something useful that the rest of the world can relate to.

Click here for his website.

In this week's email newsletter, he addressed something which struck close to home ... being a person who really enjoys my virtual on-line life (maybe a bit too much).
Here is an excerpt:

The Distraction Addictions
By: "Eric Maisel" www.ericmaisel.com

Hello, everybody:

I’ve thought a lot about those special addictions that might be dubbed the distraction addictions, addictions like compulsive Internet surfing, online shopping, and video game playing that have sprung up alongside our technological advances. These new addictions are a lure for everybody, but they are especially alluring to folks like
full-time writers who spend their working days on the computer a mere split second away from Internet access.

If we are even minimally anxious, resistant, discouraged, uncertain or unmotivated and therefore eager to find some way to avoid getting on with our writing, how strong the pull is to distract ourselves with a beckoning, right-at-hand Internet possibility. The pull to avoid our work can prove so strong that it is fair to call our flight compulsive and to characterize our behavior in real and not metaphoric terms as an addiction. How many millions of hours are writers losing to the distraction addictions? And insofar as these behaviors represent a real addiction, the solution isn’t an easy one—what’s required is nothing less than a full-fledged recovery program.

Something similarly real, poignant, and prevalent are the adrenaline addictions. Here a person who is addicted to fast driving, fast living, risk-taking and other hormonal wildness is using the body’s ability to create excitement as a substitute for the earned excitement that comes with nailing a page of the novel he or she is writing. How much easier it is to get a rush by hopping on your motorcycle and racing down the road than by canalizing your energy, channeling your being into your creative work, and waiting for the rush of good adrenal feeling that may not come until late this afternoon—or next week—or not at all.

The distraction addictions and the adrenaline addictions are existential cheap thrills. We have to guard against them, and deal with them forthrightly if they’ve gotten their claws into us, with as much honesty and care as we are obliged to deal with anything with the power to rob us of our time, energy, and authenticity. A little Internet surfing, like a little social drinking, is no problem whatsoever. But when you begin to lose control, the negative consequences and the feelings of guilt and shame commence, and you know, even as you have trouble admitting it, that you have a problem—...well, you do.

If some form of distraction addiction or adrenaline addiction is a significant reality in your life, share your story with me and, with your permission, I’ll pass a few such stories along in this newsletter. I know that we’d all love to hear, so that we can begin to understand them moreclearly and deal with them more effectively.

Taking up Less Space on the Planet

Aerial view of Bangalore India


Selling my 110 year old Victorian house was the second hardest thing I've ever had to do. Leaving behind my gardens with my 80 year old heritage roses, my big maple tree in the back yard, the high ceilings and the spacious rooms was a huge loss. At the time, I didn't want to live anywhere else.

So I hit the road and decided not to live anywhere for a while. I came back to Hamilton in February and started to feel like it was time to settle in. I went to the opposite extreme and got myself an average-sized one bedroom apartment.

And you know, it's okay. I don't miss my old house the way I thought I would. There are a lot of pluses -- starting with $300 less in utility bills. And I'm not buying so much anymore because there's no extra space to put things in. When I had the house, there was always a blank wall to fill, a spot that would be perfect for the chair I saw in the antique store. In the apartment, I only have enough space for what I have.

And I even have a garden ... in pots on my spacious balcony. No weeding to do, no leaves to rake. I even have a couple of tomato plants in production right now .. there aren't a lot of tomatoes on it, but they are really good.

I think I've begun to shift my thinking because of all the other homes I've seen in my various travels. New York City --- everybody has small apartments there. After visiting friends and finding out how much rent costs in the big apple, I can understand why the New York style of decorating is sparse .. because nobody has any money left to buy much after the rent is paid.

And Delhi -- the family I stayed with in India had a two bedroom flat. Ten people lived there. Eleven, counting me. And it worked. It's all about the rhythm you establish with the people with whom you live ... some people get beds, others roll out the sleeping mat on the floor. You do what you need to do.

I'm thinking more and more these days about sustainability .. both ecologically and economically. Standing on the sidewalk looking at my big house, I can see now that we had more than we needed. It is this kind of living that leads to urban sprawl. Mind you, our house was not built recently on good farmland. But it's the same suburban attitudes ... that we all need three bathrooms, a guestroom, a family room, a living room. In the case of families, I can see the need for larger spaces. But for the two of us, all that space is wasteful.

Last year I went to the World Urban Forum in Vancouver. The predominant theme was that soon, very soon, there will be more people living in cities than in rural areas. Everyone agreed, we need to figure out ways of creating living space for more people.

I think part of the job is to change our definition of what constitutes a good life. We don't have to have as much as we think we need.

Small though it is, I like my little place. If I go into a larger house, I want it to be shared space. Because we all need to share what we have with each other as resources get scarcer and scarcer. Looking at it now, I haven't lost anything. I've gained a new understanding about how I need to live on this planet.

On-line vs. non-line

The shape of things to come -- an online meeting through the computer with Vancouver, Toronto and some city in Poland ...


A friend of mine told me today how much he likes my blog. And I got to thinking how little I've paid attention to my blog since Facebook came along. Oh, the seductiveness of these new little sirens on the Internet makes us all faithless lovers.

I'm rather culture shocked by all these new gadgets. I consider it important to keep up with all the new trends and ways that people are using the internet. Partly out of interest but mostly because I don't think you can do participatory media work without keeping up.

And there's so much to learn. Life was simple when there were blogs. Blogs are now so ten-minutes-ago. Know how I can tell? When people who were positively internet phobic are showing up on blogs, you know they're becoming pretty standard fare.

Same is becoming true with Facebook. I just got a friend invitation from somebody I hadn't heard from in a long time who accepted my invitation to be a Facebook friend. (I sent the invitation about three months ago, so it took a bit of thought on his part). So then I went to his listing and hit "view friends" and there were no friends there. So he still doesn't quite get it ... a Facebook page with no friends. But at least he's there. It's a start, pretty good for a person who has never shown up in a Google search. That's how internet-absent he is. Geez, even my grandmother shows up in Google searches and she's been dead for 15 years.

I am getting quite boggled (bloggled?) by it all. I just signed up with Ning, on the advice of the Exalted One Wayne MacPhail (knower of all things in the new generation Web ... you can bow down to him in homage at www.w8nc.com). I look at his Facebook site every day to find out what the latest is .. and there's always something new.

It takes a long time to figure out how to integrate a lot of those new apps in communications projects and daily life. I still don't understand all of the implications. I recommend to people that they try out some of these new things ... only by using them can you really start to understand the impact they're having on society. And your kids.

Had a discussion yesterday with someone who refuses to be a presence on the internet because he doesn't want it to replace his personal relationships face-to-face. He told me "I've only got five people I consider to be my friends. And I want to see them in person, not on the internet". And that's fair enough .. one of the things I've heard said about friendships these days is that many people's pool of friends is wide, but shallow. He prefers narrow and deep.

I'm pretty picky about to whom I attach the word "friend" as well. Even so, I would describe my pool as deep and wide. I enjoy having easy access to my friends through the internet. If I could sit down with a friend for a beer, I'd rather do that. But I can't do that with most of them because they're all over the place.

That's the point, I think. I don't want to see people live all their lives in virtual reality. But using virtual reality to augment life on non-line is valid.

It's all a question of balance. And using new tools to enhance your life. Not take over it.

I still love being a geek-girl ...

When things fall apart ...

I don't know what it is about July of 2007. For some reason, a lot of things are falling apart for a lot of people in my life right now.

Several people are in a state of confusion, not sure where they should land and what they need to do to get there. It's not as desperate as "is my parachute going to open or am I going to get schmucked on the ground?" but there is a lot of uneasiness around anyway.

Several organizations I am involved with, or peripherally involved with, are going through some troubles right now. In my own life, the job that was supposed to provide me a financial base for the forseeable future is on the verge of collapse. I've only been involved with this group for several months, so I'm not sad about this so much for me ... it's an organization which has been in existence for almost twenty years. A lot of people have put a lot of heart and soul into this group. I'm mostly sad to watch their hopes and dreams whither away. It may not come to that, but it's looking like shutting down is a distinct possibility.

And there are a couple of other groups in town (many, actually) that are living a tenuous existence .. from grant to grant, miracle to miracle.

The biggest problem is that people get tired and burn out .. I wish we could just do the work and be able to forget about mere survival for a while. If that were possible, we could all get to the business and art of building our communities. As it is, we're just treading water.

This is not a lament, though. And regardless of what happens, I'll be okay. I've learned a lot about resilience throughout my life, especially in the last couple of years.

Some of my reflections about change:

1) change is cyclical. What seems to be insurmountable usually works out in the end.
2) change happens all the time. But sometimes it gets more dramatic than at other times. It's not that change wasn't happening before a particular dramatic event happens. It's just that most of the time it doesn't come roaring in ... most of the time it's more subtle than that. So nothing's really different except the intensity. Same old, same old.
3) the more you try to force things to resolve themselves, the worse it's going to be. That doesn't mean you should quit trying. It's about the kind of trying you do .. the times I ride out the changes the best are the times when I am able to give up attachments to particular outcomes. For example, maybe this organization I'm working with will come through the crisis. Or maybe it won't. Whatever happens, it won't be the end of the story. The old systems will evolve into new ones.

My wise mountainwoman friend Angie told me a story about her Granny that has stayed with me through the years. Her Granny was widely acknowledged to have powers that people couldn't explain. When Angie asked her "Granny, where does it come from?", her Granny just said "sshhh .. we don't talk about such things". Because if you try to find the source of the power, it will leave you.

"Not FROM me", Granny said, "THROUGH me".

Hard mantra to put into practice ... but a profound statement about reducing our ego investment in whatever's happening around you. And it works when you can manage it.

Living on the Fault Line

I just got back from doing a really compelling interview.

I am working on my documentary about the family I stayed with in Kashmir, India, in the fall. I have turned the story into a print piece that will be coming out in Mayday Magazine this month. My radio piece (the first one anyway) is just about done and will be broadcast/podcast sometime over the next two weeks.

Those two pieces focus on the lives of the Muslim family I stayed with. I had many, many questions after I left than I had when I first got there, and the more I learn, seems the more complex it gets.

Some of the stories that I work on are disposable .. I write them and forget them. Then there are the stories that stay with you .. it's not so much that I found the story. Rather, the story found me. This is one of them.

A friend of mine casually mentioned that she had a student in her class from Kashmir, and then asked "you went there, didn't you?". She told me more about him .. he's a Hindu from Kashmir, originally from Srinagar, where I had been.

I really wanted to talk to him because there aren't that many Hindus in Kashmir anymore .. a lot of them had left or were driven out when the conflict intensified in 1989. This was a piece to the story I didn't really know a lot about yet. So I got together with Raj this morning. I will post the entire interview on rabble.ca at the same time as I post the documentary.

What was so remarkable about it? What it demonstrated to me was the significance of Kashmir to this young Hindu man .. it's not just holy to Muslims. Even though he had left Kashmir when he was three, Raj referred to Kashmir as a Mecca for Hindus too. And not just Hindus and Muslims. Many people believe that the crucifixion didn't kill Christ ... that his disciples spirited him and Mother Mary away to Kashmir. There have also been genetic tests done showing that Kashmiris have Jewish blood.

Raj says he can remember his family's house, his family's lifestyle and leaving Kashmir. He talked about his aunt who was killed in a bomb blast. He doesn't remember a lot because he was only three. But he is proud to be a Kashmiri even though he is in exile. He would like to go back for a visit but says it isn't safe for a Hindu.

I asked him the question that had been on my mind ever since coming back ... was I brave to go there, naive, or a combination of the two? I asked him if he would recommend that his friends go to Kashmir. He answered, if they are Muslim, yes. Hindu, no. And if you're any other nationality, also no.

But haven't things settled down now, I asked? Yes, they have, he said. Because relations between Pakistan and India are now better? He said he didn't think that was it ... he thinks that the jihadis who were active in Kashmir in past years are now active in other parts of the world. Like Afghanistan.

I tried to get to the heart of his belief about Kashmiri Muslims -- explaining that the fear, the bloodshed, the fighting, was not at all what I experienced living with the Dandoo family. He said "Asian Muslims are different. They come from different traditions." Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Jews all lived in peace for many years. This is a type of Islam that has been imported into Kashmir from elsewhere, he told me. And the Muslims in Kashmir are going through a crisis of identity, not knowing who they are anymore.

I have been looking for a metaphor that symbolizes what I perceived while I was there. Raj gave me the metaphor I was looking for ... this is India's fault line, he said, shifting all the time. Sometimes dramatically, sometimes subtley, but always shifting.

If there is no huge shift, things can continue on as they have. But the violent shift that changes everything could happen at any time.

And nobody knows when.