Thursday, December 07, 2006

One of the most frequently frustrating things that happens to me is that I have these bouts of thoughts that I'd like to blog that I dream up while doing something monotonous, yet I lose track of them by the time I'm done. Tonight, while doing two hours worth of dishes (driven on by Nick Wilson’s selections on MB’s iPod), I was lucky enough to have some paper and pen nearby to jot things down on between washing and drying. A thought: people (a generalization mostly based on myself) seem to optimize their behaviour in regards to the input and output of information, as if we have some kind of processing inertia. To clarify: I spend a lot of time reading stuff. Online news, journals, articles, blogs, cereal boxes, signs, and almost anything I can see (I still remember the moment that I realized I could read; at that moment I thought that by never stopping, things would be easier). While this is partially fueled by the reading material being convenient, I’d say that I intake a lot more information than I churn out (like this blog entry). (Note that I don't actually assume all information input to come in the form of reading; it just happens to be the most evident to me.) Yet I know of some people (among myself) of accruing a drive of information output. This need not be in the form of writing (chopping firewood works too), but could be. This drive, or groove is admirable and very convenient when it happens: once you start producing, it’s easier to continue producing. I think that both could be considered work, so it’s not as simple as saying that production of a written work is more difficult simply because it requires more thought or energy, because it’s possible to read carefully and introspectively and exhaust yourself the same amount. Likewise, you could do a crappy job doing either. So I suspect that there’s some kind of inertia behind information locomotion. Possible tangents from this thought include workaholism, average email send/receive ratios and distributions over time, and theories on fun (video games are fun because they present a string of easily accomplishable tasks, etc.) and the conversion from information to knowledge and the distinction between those two. PS – Blogger: great job on the update; I'm liking how the improvements are subtle.

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