Distracton

No, I'm not talking about the distractions in my life that have kept me from updating this blog on anything more than a sporadic basis. I am just kind of lame, and my moderately quiet blog life is more a byproduct of the occasionally hectic, occasionally banal lifestyle I'm currently living. Sadly for this blog, much of my creative energy is being funneled into Hello Monster world (there will be a new CD sometime before the summer is out) and into the fits and spurts of fiction writing I've been trying to pull together.

But yeah, distractions. See, weekend I spent a lot of time hanging out with a lot of people. Under this blanket term, "hanging out" generally encompasses sitting in places with other people, from two up to probably about 25 at various points, in people's back yards, houses, at BBQs, at bars, you get the idea. In each instance, save for one which I'll address later, there was a widely common theme: distraction. There was always something else going on somewhere which caused people to split their attention from the conversation at hand. I know that it's wildly indicative of our fast-paced modern culture, but it is also a somewhat disturbing trend. Why do we always have to multi-task? Still, there is always a TV on somewhere, or there is someone doing something internetty, or even something as small as everyone constantly checking their phones for missed calls, texts, emails, and all that business. I am a firm believer that if you're going to hang out with someone or spend time with them, that you really owe it to them, if not yourself, to really be there. It's sad that we've lost this ability, but it was really a common theme of much of my weekend: being surrounded by people who were by and large focused on something other than interacting with the people around them. It wasn't constant, but there were so many "oh, hang on, I've got to take this" or "have you seen this internet thing? I'll pull it up on my phone for you" that there was no real reason for people to actually be in the same space.

Now, before I move on, I'll make myself perfectly clear when I say that people will break conversation for phone and internet reference stuff, I am absolutely as guilty as the next person. I do my best to give mostly undivided attention if I'm spending time with someone, but there's a natural tendency in our generation to take any lull in attention or conversation to sneak a peak at your phone. I do it, you probably do too. It's okay, I'm not saying we're bad or insensitive people for doing it, but it does make me a little sad that it's so widely accepted.

But moving on to the exception: today was an absolutely beautiful day in San Francisco. The sun was out, there was a light breeze, and I'd had a wildly productive band practice. I left the studio to see a message from a friend wanting to see if I wanted to hang out, maybe have a few beers, and just enjoy the day. So he came over, and initially I figured we'd watch some TV or maybe play video games or something, but instead we did a fantastic alternative: we sat and talked. Yeah, I was playing music in the background, but other than that, we spent pretty much the whole afternoon sitting in my living room, talking about life, discussing job hunting stories, and just catching up on what has been going on with each other in the past week or two. To make matters even better, a few hours later, more folks came by, and the four of us just sat around talking for another hour, before we went in separate directions for dinner. Even as I was sitting there, I was realizing: this is much more what people used to do. People would visit, friends would go to people's houses to socialize, and you all got a better sense of people as individuals. It sounds cheesy, but I really feel like I know these friends a lot better after spending a few hours just talking about nothing in particular with them. Yes, I have known all of them for years, but there was just a great connection made all the way around that I don't feel as often as I used to when hanging out with people, and I think most of that can be chalked up to just spending a little time doing nothing but talking.

After all, as Anne Morrow Lindbergh said: "Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after."