Our attention span is unsettling. We start to watch a movie, hit the pause button for a few minutes, have a cigarette break, then realize we’d like to have a steaming mug of coffee to enjoy with the cigarette, so we make ourselves one. We try to go back to watching the movie, but of course we have to check our mobile phone first for any text messages. We find out from our friend that so-and-so broke up with her longtime boyfriend, so we go online, check people’s Multiply pages, then find out that indeed, their pictures in their trip to Boracay, Macau and Puerto Galera are deleted. Then we have another cigarette…while taking a dump and shuffling through the pages of the daily paper.
We can’t do anything for a long time anymore. There is so much information available, so many choices of activities that we can’t even just sit back. Too many online personality tests have told me that I constantly seek for momentum and stimulation, intellectually and otherwise. Life is composed of short bursts of flavors, scents, sounds and sights that overwhelm the senses. Full of stories about people satiated with intrigue, fame, prestige and brilliance. Full of conversations and witty repartees and one-liners from books and films.
We start to listen/watch/eat/read something, and if it doesn’t astonish or delight us within ten minutes, we do something else, or we do something else while we continue to do it. We know we are never satisfied, never contented. Yet we can’t imagine doing things any other way.
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