Fellow guitar players will surely read the title of this post and say “what the hell does a weird guitar chord have to do with this nerd blog?” Well, I was trying to find an alternate voicing for the F#ms sus4 because the rest of the thing I was working on was way up the neck and my usual 2nd fret method wasn’t going to help. Anyway, I’ve had good luck with Youtube (and of course the amazing chordfind.com, although it’s so full of ads now I don’t usually bother) so I set about finding the solution. Stop me if this has happened to you before, but…an hour later I find myself watching highlights of the Red Wings / Avalanche rivalry from the 90’s and I’d totally forgotten what the hell I’d even come to youtube for in the first place.
I’d be willing to bet we ALL have some form of ADD, especially with a firehose of on-demand information available by simply tapping an icon on our phone. I’m a total sucker for hockey highlights and DIY project videos. Not to mention going down the rabbit hole of memories that flood in when I find old clips of bands I used to go see. Oh, and don’t get me started on cute animal videos. Especially puppies. I’m a total sucker for puppies.
See what I mean?
All this unfettered data / information / useless junk we have access to nowadays has ignited a packet lust that the internet providers will never be able to keep up with. I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing. It’s all about self-discipline, like so many things in life. Knowing you can find the data you need is sometimes better than keeping it around in your head. For example there is a certain update query syntax for MySQL that I’ve refused to try to memorize. I’ve tried and every single time I thought I had it, I have to go look it up. It got to the point where I started keeping a file on my desktop with common query syntax and other PHP programming nuggets (like some slick for-loop stuff I found years ago).
Really, most of my digital life has become bookmarks and saved queries that open up entire worlds that are somehow connected (by hockey highlights and puppy videos). I have no idea what affect this will have on future generations. The trick is to somehow stay on the rails and avoid the distractions as they blast past you.
It’s a metaphor for life, really (funnier if you read that in David St. Hubbins’ voice. Yes, it’s a youtube link. You’re welcome.)