In his weekly newsletter from last Friday, writer/artist Austin Kleon had this sage advice (which also appears in his new book Don’t Call It Art):
Another assignment for the holiday weekend, from Don’t Call It Art: “Get offline as much as possible. There’s so much input to be found in the real world outside of the internet. Go old school. Listen to radio shows. Browse the recently returned stacks at your local library. Buy weird old books at thrift shops. Visit a museum you’ve never been to. Find a good record store and chat up the clerks. Interact with real people in meatspace.”
That’s great homework (or rather outside-the-home work) for any weekend, not just holiday weekends.
Your smart phone is making you dumber. The apps are engineered to hook you in and drag you deeper down the well (or cesspool).
Get out. Tune in to what the real world has to offer. Rewire your brain. Find something different, something funky, something fun. And then, as Austin so eloquently puts it “interact with real people in meatspace.”
For the uninitiated:
Make the meatspace a meet space too. Do “social” instead of social media. Your life will feel so much richer for it.
The pixels and data centers and ones and zeros will get along just fine without you. And vice-versa.
If you’re in the Cincinnati area, here’s a reco for your assignment. On Tuesday I went to the inaugural “Lunch Club” at the Mercantile Library downtown.
I had no idea it was the first gathering until I got there and the host mentioned it. To be honest, I’m 50/50 on reading the Mercantile Library’s weekly emails (due to time constraints, not due to disinterest). But I happened to read the one promoting this event and signed up, despite my loner tendencies. That was mostly thanks to Austin Kleon’s encouragement. I met four fine folks, we had lively conversations, and I headed back to work energized.
That’s some pretty good meatspace activity, especially for a vegetarian.
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