Media Diet

I’ve exposed myself to some great films and great music recently. In fact, a bit more than usual. Possibly, too much.

I watched 5 movies turkey day weekend, I’m reading 2 books and I just got a stack of 10 more from Grandma. My queue is bursting at the buttons. To truly appreciate art, books or music, they deserve proper attention. Proper attention meaning enough mental energy to immerse yourself into the piece. RAM instead of hard drive space. It needs room to go. Without an idleness or stillness, the movie being watched is layered upon brain jabber.

Part of the equation includes allowing “sink-in” time after the new information has been input. This does occur during the act of watching a movie, reading a book or just enjoying the art. It’s not enough though. I measure how good a movie is by how long I’m thinking of it post viewing. Harold and Maude has been my most recent example of that.

In other words, if there are a number of classic film themes lingering in the ol’ noggin, it’s not fair to the one you’re watching now.

And here we are. While we’re using computer terms, I need a defrag. It’s extremely against my auto pilot….but I’m going to quit new music, new movies, or new books for a week. Let the sediment settle. Ideally, the experiment will cleanse the palette and prepare me for new material.