attention deficit

I'm surrounded by distractions. Twitter, RSS feeds, tumblr, the endless text messages, emails, phone calls and now, just to throw a little technological anachronism into the mix, now I have a fax machine on my desk. All this feels like a series of distractions competing for my attention, and I find myself trying (and more often than not failing) to multi-task so that I get through all the things I need to do in a day. I know I'm not alone in this, and it is obviously nothing new - all sorts of people have been writing about the dangers the saturation of modern technology pose to the minds of our precious children. Of course I never get past the first paragraph of any of these articles, so I have to imagine the dangers.

And imagine them I do, when I can concentrate long enough. I imagine that these articles are talking about the lack of time we have to think about things in any depth, and that we are increasingly forced to juggle, make snap decisions, absorb more and more information without ever taking the time to stop and analyse all this wonderful information that is suddenly at our beck and call.

I had a point here. I was going somewhere with this.

That's right. I keep feeling like these distractions distract me from the more important stuff I should be doing. But then I am so distracted that I can't work out what the important stuff is. I guess I'm just a man-child, still looking for that answer. What am I doing with my life?

Running as fast as I can from the idea that I might be wasting it.