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Since the world is all the rage about this virus (first major pandemic of the 21^st century), I figured I'd jump on board. Since graduating college, I've been stuck inside my house working on fixing it up and making it livable. So in the interest of staying sane while being housebound, I've found that finding projects to enhance the state of living help immensely. Learning new skills; be it cooking, an instrument, programming, a new language, carpentry, electronics, exercise, martial arts, dance, sewing, painting, gardening, juggling, whistling, magic tricks, a new game, or even biology or chemistry, with a significant portion of time spent staring at the same walls, it's easy to forget how much is possible with so little. Don't know how something works? Figure it out. Read articles and watch YouTube videos about it.

Without trying to sound too preachy, I personally find the presence of a TV incredibly distracting and demanding of attention. To a lesser degree the same applies to music with lyrics as I get the near insurpressable urge to sing along, which also distracts from the task at hand. One of the reasons for my general distaste of mass media (besides advertisements), is that it is a one-way conversation. You can talk to the TV or radio as much as you want, but the people there will never hear you. You cannot change their minds or attempt to discuss issues in any depth, the only thing you can do is be force-fed information of their choosing - the irony is that the same applies to this blog (except you can email me, and I will probably respond).

Overall, I think the main issue I take with these distractions is that they detract from experiencing the world around us and can act as a blindfold to some degree. The interaction is lacking, so the amount of learning is significantly less because, again, there is no relationship that is built between the self and the subject at hand. For all skills, it is necessary to go both ways; learn from those who have accomplished something in the past, and synthesize to generate your own inate knowledge and intuitive understanding so that in the future, you too can pass it on, and the world improves because of it.

Perhaps this change of pace for the general population will help awaken the inner curiousity of people, help them go so insane that they'll be forced to create rather than consume, that they'll get bored of the news and think independently, even just a little bit more. Humans are creatures of habit, so this may be a good way to help break some unhealthy habits by forcing us to be more introspective.

Or not, when you can just consume endless TikTok videos and scroll infinitely through Facebook or Reddit? (kids these days! *grumble grumble grumble* - I'll make a good curmudgeon some day)