Arsing around on YouTube this morning, a Mark Manson quote slapped me square in the bake:
“Learning more is a smart person’s favourite way to procrastinate.”
Guilty. Learning has always been my preferred form of avoidance. Information is my drug of choice. When the internet arrived, I basically found myself in a 24/7 all-you-can-eat information buffet with no closing time and no bouncer to kick me out.
I still remember my first time seeing the internet. It was 1993. I was at an open night at Queen’s, nosing around the computer science department, when one of the lecturers pointed dramatically at a terminal and said, “And this is the internet.” Cue dramatic music. I’d heard of it, of course, but this was my first encounter. A year later, I was enrolled and deep into web design, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The internet gave me a career. But it also gave me a scrambled attention span, a mild addiction, and an inability to sit still without reaching for a screen. Then came smartphones. Suddenly, the entire planet’s knowledge could fit in my pocket. I remember thinking how brilliant it was to fix a client’s website from a train in the Netherlands. What I didn’t realise was that the line between work and rest had been permanently erased.
Then came social media. Facebook? Meh. But Twitter? That was like heroin for the info-addicted. Reddit? Pure, uncut cocaine. Tailor-made content lined up to feed my every curiosity. Global newspapers, niche blogs, obscure subreddits on 15th-century bread-making—it’s all there, all the time. Then YouTube and podcasts entered the chat. With the advent of ChatGPT I can now ask it every random question that pops into my head. As my head is constantly full of ideas and questions, it’s a non-stop brainstorm/pub quiz up there.
I can’t just blame the tech, though. I’m wired this way. At Queen’s, I was one of those irritating students who skipped lectures and then crammed a semester’s worth of content in a week and passed. I’m hyper-efficient. I can do the work of three or four people in the same time. But the downside is, I burn out just really quickly. That level of output isn’t sustainable without rest and recalibration. Most afternoons, you will find me on the sofa under my weighted blanket. Like half the population these days, I’ve also started wondering if I’m neurodivergent in some way.
But here’s the core problem: I’ve become a pure consumer. Since the pandemic, I’ve had this low-level hum in my brain that whispers: you’re doing bugger all. My business is stagnant. My social life is meh. Even my Slugger posts lack vim. I can go through the moments, but there’s no spark there. At the moment, I am on course for my headstone to say ‘He was really good at Googling’.
I’m not saying this for sympathy. I’m saying it because I know I’m not the only one. Our leaders spend half their lives in meetings, churning out reports, endlessly researching, and not actually doing anything. Meanwhile, we’re watching Gordon Ramsay make risotto while microwaving a M&S ready meal. We’re watching influencers work out instead of actually exercising. We’ve confused observing with participating. We’re consuming more information in a single day than our grandparents did in an entire month, and its affecting all of us.
So, this summer, I’m launching Operation Get My Mojo Back.
Aims:
- Read more fiction, less non-fiction.
- Swap the self-help podcasts for entertaining ones.
- Slash my news consumption.
- Avoid Reddit and social media.
- Get out more. See actual humans. Be a human myself.
- Be bored.
- Create more, consume less.
In self-help circles, this is called “accountability.” So do me a favour: ask me how Mojo Mission is going. Or better yet, if you’re feeling just as fried, join me. Let’s get a bit less plugged-in and a bit more switched-on.
You’ve got nothing to lose but that constant twitch of distraction and the creeping dread of unrealised potential.
You good people can do me a favour and give me some travel suggestions on where to go to clear your head. I’m thinking of Donegal, so I would appreciate any tips on where to stay.
Managing Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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