Media Detox

Gee. Everyone’s staying away from their blogs this week, it seems, except me. And I’m the one avoiding media, so I should have the least to talk about. Instead, I feel like blogging. Hmmm. That’s causing a few neurons to fire.

The media avoidance has made me realize just how media-saturated I am. Well, and it’s not just media; it’s raw input. I have a lot of stuff pouring into my brain at any given moment. Imagine this scenario: I’m in line at a coffee house. I’m thinking about what to order. In front of me hangs a huge menu of choices, and each choice is competing for my attention. Pop songs are playing loudly enough for me to understand the lyrics above the din of conversation. I’m smelling several different brews of coffee. That’s a lot of input.

I come home and I have DVDs to watch, magazines to read, mail to sort, e-mail to answer, and possums on my back fence. No, really:

This little guy sat on top of my back porch all Monday morning. After a cold snap last week, we’ve had warm weather recently, which has thawed out several inches of snow. I suspect my little friend’s burrow flooded, so he was spending the morning drying himself out and waiting for his burrow to dry out. Poor thing. Totally unafraid of me, though; let me get right up next to him and didn’t even bat an eye.

I guess that’s what comes of less media input; I notice things like this.