Here I am, taking a break from a crazy morning of launching a newly public product beta community. (By the way, if you want to virtualize your PC or Linux box, try the latest beta release candidate of VMware Workstation 7 and Player: http://bit.ly/14YHHM ; but I digress.) I’ve been glued to my laptop since the early hours of the day AT HOME. Now I have to “unstuck” myself from this machine, clean up my grunge look, and get my buttocks over to the office. Shouldn’t be too hard – except even when I shut down my PC connected to the corporate LAN and the Internet via Comcast high-speed broadband cable network and my wireless router at home, I’m STILL connected. Yes, I too suffer from Crackberry syndrome. Email, phone, Internet, Facebook, games, all neatly packaged in the palm of my hand.
So how do I break this addiction? One solution did not work out so well in the long run: falling on my head at full impact on the ice while skating, then undergoing a craniotomy to remove a hematoma. It was somewhat nice to be disconnected from it all for two months; then again, the headaches and nausea, not to mention the isolation and home imprisonment were not so pleasant. Maybe I can do what Bilbo Baggins (the hobbit of JRR Tolkien lore, for the uninitiated) did in “The Fellowship of the Ring.” He gave the ring (= Blackberry) to Gandalf the Grey (someone, anyone) and took off to faraway Elfen lands across the oceans. Somewhere quiet, he said. Can we survive like that anymore?
The middle ground might be to stop and enjoy old pleasures frequently enough to retain one’s sanity: reading a book or a newspaper rather than seeing it online; talking to friends face-to-face or on the phone rather than doing what I’m doing now (writing in my blog and Facebook) or sending emails; doing research at the library of all places instead of on Wikipedia; going out and playing sports rather than “playing” them on the Wii or the PS 3 or the XBox 360 at home. I should try these alternatives more often. I will probably reduce eyestrain and shed a few pounds in the process.
Maybe. Then again, I’m a 21st century, overweight hypomaniac who needs to get off this damn computer, shave and get over to the office.