2019-09-18 - Minimizing digitally
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm pondering how to keep minimizing all my digital stuff. Although
i think i am already pretty minimized; My /home contains 165mb, and
an external drive contains about 1.6gb, of which 1.2gb is videogame
stuff. So it's not terabytes of stuff i need to clean, thankfully..
Somehow i feel the urge to reduce this even more. Wouldn't 100mb or
50mb be more than enough to keep all my stuff i want to keep? And
why (not)?
Somewhere, i think using a small amount of data storage, pleases
me. And i do not fully understand why. Probably it enables me to
keep an overview and strict control over the 'digital' things i
own. As my small brain can only keep an overview of a certain
amount of files, i feel the need to adjust accordingly.
Strangely enough, i do not consider the OS i'm working on as
personal files, and so they don't bother me. And i am well aware
this is non-sensical...
It's probably the same voice in my head that keeps telling (or
nagging) me that i should remove the Xorg system from my pc and go
text-only. It certainly would help me focus a bit more, and not get
distracted by everything.
I'm apparently still struggling with computers and internet. The
awesome thing is that they can do so much. But at the same time
this is also horrible as it is very distracting.
Yesterday i read a little post by Pkotrcka [1] on SDF on the topic
of distraction, and he asked if people are strong enough to resist
the distraction of Youtube et al.
I am definitely too easily distracted by these things, up till the
point that it really bothers me that i'm not doing anything other
than watching stupid videos of cats knocking glasses off tables.
So i hope to increase focus by redesigning the way i use the
computer. And i'm apparently doing this by reducing or limiting
things; I've strongly limited my internet access to 500mb a month.
I've swapped my graphical browser for lynx. And as written, now i'm
considering going CLI only, and limiting my files.
Still i get distracted by stuff. But it's way, way less than it
used to be. The fact i'm creating these poorly written little
phlogs is a direct result of the actions above. And i feel good
about it, as slowly i feel more original or creative thoughts are
returning.
Despite that these creative thoughts are not very coherent at the
moment, and despite that these thoughts are not ground breaking or
earth shattering, at least they are my own. And that's a good
thing.
So yeah, this restructuring or limiting of my computer use is
definitely helping me. Limitation apparently causes creativity.
Now i'm still finding more ways to gain more focus, and after i do,
i can probably be a real zen mast... Look a squirrel.
[1]
gopher://sdf.org/0/uosers/pkotrcka/0027
