I love writing, its something I’ve enjoyed since I was young. I don’t do enough of it, and certainly not consistently. But I am finding lately its not for lack of wanting or lack of motivation, rather its a lack of tactile real world creative feedback.

Sidebar: I recently bought a door. Painted it with blackboard paint. On both sides. And leaned it against a wall in my office. I plan things on it. I draw ideas on it. I generally just have fun with concepts on it.

What I’m getting at is that in my constant absorption within this wonderful digital world within a world that we’ve built up around ourselves. This intangible, out of reach, scraggly little blanket – I feel cut off. Overwhelmed honestly, and in this deluge of information, to dos, action orientated blog posts, top ten lists, and posts about “20 [Insert Semi Useful Thing] You’ve Probably Missed Out On.” More blah blah here, more blah blah there. Its a bit much. Its also not real. Its chock full of faux experiences, faux connections, and shock horror faux friendships. You know the type, “Yes I’ll accept your friend request, cause yes I’m awesome, and now I have 500. And its awesome.” Flash forward to some version of a mini-mart somewhere and its all about ducking into aisle three because you’d rather develop an intense interest in the ingredients of floor polish that speak to your ‘new’ friend.

I’m finding this digital world with its constant SEO gardeners, social (I’m not really interested, but its a good racket) media marketers, press releases, trending this, random #SomeThingImportant that, all a bit indistinct. Insubstantial. Not in an ethereal “Oh like, its made of binary, man” sense, but rather a there’s just not much of it that really matters. Matters in sense of what actually results from its happening. What bit of this 4.6 billion old hunk of rock it actually changed.

I dunno, maybe its my neck of the woods, my circle of influence, or trust or whatever. Maybe I don’t have a social graph, maybe its a social flat line with an odd shaped bump at the one end. Either way it feels like I need a bit more analogue. Some R&R. Disconnect. Unplug. Take the fucking blue pill. Argh.

I’ve started doing more real world things. Being creative is somehow unfulfilling when all you’ve done in a day is push pixels or herd some bytes. Making something physical that remains after the process, without the whirr of fans and distant puff of fossil fuels. So I make blackboards, to keep me away from trying to think on a screen that just doesn’t ever seem big enough. Even with two. Thoughts just feel framed, divided, distracted, distorted, 2D, reduced to their digital essence and somehow lacking any warmth. Blackboards are messy, I have chalk dust everywhere, bits of chalk lying all over the place, and I love it. Its child-like, its back to basics, its completely real. There’s no spell check, no incessant drive to perfection that the digital world allows.

“Wait did I spell that right?” F7 – done. Is that fact right, Google: Answer in a halo of light, and background of choir notes. Done. Edit this, redo that. The constant ability to erase, and start again. Easy on, easy off. It messes with your head. You don’t think, you do. Fuck Nike. Think. Learn. Grow. Turn it off. Use paper+ and pen for fuck sakes.

This incessant rush of information, the ability to go anywhere, see anything, read anything, experience anything without doing anything, learning anything, or going anywhere. Its a more alluring temptation than TV, which is just a window unto worlds we shall not see, of lives we shall not live. I’m typing this on a laptop while lying bed, hypocritical yes. But such is the state of my handwriting, the level of atrophy of such a basic skill, that we spent years learning, a hallmark of civilisation, that it takes forever to read what the hell I’ve written. Oh and the next day, you might as well have written it, the meaning’s out the window, gone.

We forward emails about sick puppies, and urban legends, and warnings about rat faeces, and free random shit. No seriously, no one is going to give you anything for forwarding an email. There is no email genie, he’s left the building. Spam accounts for more than 80% of email sent and received. This blog has captured a staggering 900+ spam comments. There is so much ones and zeros flying around that are actually interesting it would make your head explode, but that’s also in a sea of inconsequential mindless, ineffective, resource wasting, random rubbish. Turn off your phone, step away from your PC, go and sit in a quiet room. The worlds best spam filter – there you have it. Free, I just gave it to you.

I love the Internet its what I do. I believe it has the power to change so much. But that power is only in that it connects real things. Real people, with real needs connected to real products or purposes. Real world cause and effect. Checking inboxes, refreshing for retweets, scanning streams, IMs, BBMs. Malignant minutiae masquerading as meaningful measures of production, of connection, of affection.

So I challenge you unplug, disconnect, reconnect, re-experience, rediscover. Before you become like me and rant and rave about how kids these days don’t know what they’re missing.

Do something real, and enjoy the fuck out of it.