Tuesday, July 14, 2009

De-Clutter


I could never be a pack rat, for I often feel the need to throw things out. I think it's probably cathartic. It makes me feel better to get rid of the clutter and to organize what's left. I can't stand for stuff to pile up.

Today I'm sort of doing that in my online life. I've got way too much unnecessary and unrewarding reading on my Google Reader. Too much of the same stuff even if it's coming from different sources. It's all news and political topics, and all too often the blogs or forums just make me mad or aggravated, particularly the comments. Whether it's the same old narrow-minded people commenting over and over (Reason Hit and Run), or the same old trolls that show up to make the site look bad (Pajamas Media), or someone on Facebook that I don't even know and have nothing in common with and never converse with, either way the postings don't inform me as much as annoy me. It takes up time and keeps me from doing other things that are much more valuable and rewarding to my life.

Besides, I much prefer reading blogs where people write about their lives, their vacations, their thoughts, hobbies, etc. I'm not much for relentless political agendas day in and day out, unless it's short, to the point, intelligently unbiased, and also a pet project of my own.

Other than someone being caught in an embarrassing photo op, or the occasional rant about a first lady wearing $600 sneakers to a soup kitchen event, I really don't want to read endless posts about the same constitutional shreddings over and over and over. I know what I believe, I know where I fall on the political spectrum, and I MORE than know how far away my beliefs are from our current government. And I KNOW that I dig Sarah Palin and that the haters sure like to talk about her to the point of being obsessed. So they can all just keep obsessing. Nothing is changing my mind. The more they hate, the more I think I'm right to like her.

Whew! I almost got on a rant there.

So. Anyway... I'm de-cluttering my online life.

6 comments:

smartass sob said...

Whew! I almost got on a rant there.

Gettin' your "back up", huh? Now we know why it's been bothering you lately. ;-)

sasob

Chatelaine said...

Lol! Maybe that's it. Maybe it's all the bullshit on Reason and Pajamas that got my back up and hurting. I really did something horrible, but it's much better now. Still catches a bit, but at least I'm not standing in a sideways "S" shape anymore.

smartass sob said...

Maybe it's all the bullshit on Reason

It does get tiresome after awhile - especially the blog comments. I have to keep reminding myself that many of the commenters at Hit n Run are just kids, relatively speaking. Some of them can be pretty sophomoric as well as moronic. ;-)

Take it easy with your back. I take Ibuprofen for stuff like that, but I almost never have back problems; it's usually a shoulder or my neck.

sasob

Chatelaine said...

Good point about remembering that they're mostly kids. I know it's wrong of me, but I consider 22 year olds to be kids. Maybe even 25 year olds. Some of them, anyway.

I'm thinking about hitting up the ibuprofen right now. Back hurts, head hurts, neck and shoulder too. Kind of migraine-ish.

The Wine Commonsewer (TWC) said...

I take a little wine to ease the pain a bit. It is more effective than Motrin but it has a pile more calories.

I've pretty much quit commenting over at Hit & Run. Some of that is because I have no patience with many of the comments. Part of it is that FB is easier to drive-by commenting.

For some reason I have about 100 FB friends who are birthers and relentlessly post crap about how Obama is going to go down (any minute now) when the truth comes out. One by one I've shut them off (a nice feature).

Wanna come help me declutter the garage? I *AM* a pack rat. My goal is to park in there before the kids graduate high school. I don't know what happened but we used to park in the garage.

And, finally, when I was about 28 or 29 I unplugged from the entire world. I moved in with a blond that nobody knew, changed my phone number, stopped talking politics and reading the OP-ED page, and just gave it a rest. Things didn't work out with the blond very well, but it was a welcome respite from the chit. I'd done it before and subsequently, but this one sticks in my mind because I got re-discovered when, quite by accident, a guy from my old life happened to cruise by the house while I was scrubbing the El Camino in the front yard. He ratted me out and I got right popular. :-)

Chatelaine said...

Don't count on me to help in your garage, TWC. I seem to remember you had some really horrible crawly things in there once, didn't you?

Uh-uh, not me....*shudders*

My sister has the same problem, though, about not parking in the garage. It's full of junk. I only have a porte-cochere, so I can't use it for storage without ruining the look of the house. I could use an outdoor closet, though.

.....uh, Captain? :)

As for the birthers, I do think there's a story there, but I doubt anything will ever be proven or actually come to light. But yeah, I've seen some of those posts that swear the judge is about to hear the case and all hell is going to break loose or something. Some of them are passing off stuff that is old as something that just happened. Best to just back away slowly.

Mostly what gets to me is the constant day by day, moment by moment accounting of every single thing that happens in Washington each day. I just don't want to hear it. I hate every single thing that's happening in the government now, and rehashing it over and over is really discouraging. It makes me mean and makes me feel hopeless. So I'm trying to restrict myself to one or two good informative sites to read once a day, and then focus on fun things after that.

I guess my California years were my drop out years. I never regret doing that. It was one of the best moves I ever made, selling everything I owned, putting the cat in the car, and moving to the beach for a while.