Consumption Ratio


So I finally decided to break down and write this after a lot of procrastination (it makes more sense once I continue)…

I’ve realized recently that I read ALOT. I watch alot. I generally consume media alot, but most of it is reading, often blog-like stuff. Recently its been:

boingboing.net
Google News
Slashdot

I read these about twice daily on average. I’m also in the progress of reading these books/magazines:

Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevera
Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond
Scientific American
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow

And I am working my way through

Arrested Development, Season 2
Lost

Damn! That is a lot of fucking media. I spend almost a third of my waking time consuming these, and somehow I feel guilty about it. Maybe its because I abhor people that constantly reference Family Guy because I feel they aren’t expressing thierselves in thier own words. Maybe I’m afraid of only being able to understand the word through the lens I’ve taken from these? I’ve already caught myself subconsiously comparing people’s personalities around me to Lost. As this is the way I think, HOW DO I FIX THIS? (assuming this is wrong)

I clicked onto something when I was downloading a torrent, coincidentally for arrested development. To be responsible, you seed for a little while after your torrent so that you contribute to the leechers, which you once were. It sort of reminds me of the structure of Amway, strangely. I feel that I need to do some of this too, in terms of media. This is sort of why I started the blog too.

If there are a certain number of people in the world, and very few contribute much to the whole mediascape, then there must be a few people who contribute tons. Or am I wrong, yes I am. Shit. Wow.

e.g.

6 billion people write an article. Then, each of those people are free to consume the other’s media at a much greater ratio than 1:1, consumed:created. Wow.

Not I don’t feel as guilty, but I still need to contribute something to feel right. Its like an entropy thing, and who likes entropy.

Strangely, this point came up in the last Savage Love that I read. Someone said they wanted to make some porn to put on thier friends website because they felt they “needed to give back as much as they took”. Dan Savage, ever the practical realist, said that if that was the rule then the internet would be clogged with porn of old, ulgy men.

I don’t know what the point of this article was, but there it is. I’m eating up memory space!