I get sidetracked. I build a webpage. The font isn’t exactly the right color. I buy software that I can’t use, and the vendor won’t refund it. I download photos in the wrong format, and can’t convert them. There is always the promise, with electronics, of improving something — don’t like the font? Use a different one. Don’t want to open your own emails? Set a rule. Every optimization introduces a proliferation of possibilities– fonts with shadows, integrating the shadowy fonts with your notification system, integrating the whole notification system with your printed calendar, printing the calendar on t-shirts, sending the printed t-shirts to various groups of friends, that you can tag, according to how well you know them and how many t-shirts you want them to have.

I watched a movie about drummers last night. All these gifted, amazing drummers. Some of them looked like trolls from a Tolkien novel. One was strikingly handsome, with polished white teeth and a long ponytail, a single frown line between his eyebrows, which made him look serious, even though his eyes were kind. One was tiny, with a short neck, short arms and a barrel chest. They sat together, like messengers from a world of crystals and magic, telling the interviewer why they drum– to find joy, to go back to the arms of their mother, because drumming is the beating heart, the core of life. The only difference between them and anybody else is that they drum. They drum so hard blood comes from their hands. They drum four hours, take a short break and drum some more. The message came through loud and clear: we are what we repeatedly do. Stay away from the internet. Try not to waste this precious time.