I do not have a television. I no longer have Netflix. Days on end go by without my turning on or actively listening to music. I love TV. I love Netflix. I love music. 

The walls in my apt are absolutely bare. I haven’t even hung up my own paintings. I do watch documentaries on YouTube. 

I read the news. 

I am being reminded that these decisions, not necessarily even conscious choices, have led to various freedoms. And continue to. I am also not driven by other people’s agendas nearly as much as when “pundits” try to tell me about what I should be outraged and when. They don’t care about the news. They care about ratings and advertising dollars. They don’t care about you. They care about “eyeballs” and “impressions” that they can sell. News is a business. Extract what you need. Think. Discern. Turn down the volume. In this way you can endure a prolonged resistance. 

Why should we watch people screaming at each other on every issue and consider that an education? How does that make us calm? How does that prepare us to speak with each other in peace? Why do we even care about each item? 

When should turn it off.
I love shows like Game of Thrones and The Wire. I have enjoyed House of Cards. I watch in moderation, but I steal back my time and my mind. That we have to is a shame, and means that we are also thieves. Be your own Robinhood. 

Just thinking. Reading. Writing. Gently down the stream..

Tonight I did a 5k on the elliptical machine. It’s been forever, but I stuck to it. I didn’t bring an extra shirt, so I rinsed it under the faucet at the gym,wrung it dry then put it back on. Having it soaked with water beat putting my hoodie on over one soaked with sweat. Doing that made me chuckle, and it felt better because now it was warm from the hot water. 

As I walked up 6th ave, I saw a gray van that had an antenna seemingly attached to the hubcap. They looked liked swollen ski racks and satellite like receptors/transmitters on the roof. Apple maps vehicle based on the fact that it said Apple maps on it. I figure that that’s the guy who periodically sends me to the wrong place as he drives around mapping the city. I thought about taking and posting a picture, but it didn’t seem interesting enough. 

As I followed the van up the street with my eyes, I came to 41st and started to cross. I then realized that I didn’t have the signal and a car was about to turn. I stepped back on the curb and waved to say sorry. A youngish white guy with a short hair cut was driving and he rolled down his window and started saying something. His face was expressionless so I asked him to repeat himself. It sounded like he was asking for directions. No. It sounded like he asked if I could spare some money. I saw a baby seat in the back. 

“What’d you say?” 

“Can you spare $20?”

“Can I spare TWENTY DOLLARS?!.. NO!”

He started laughing and signaled me across the street. I started laughing and slowly started moving wondering if I should really get in front of this guy’s car. I hurried across appreciatively and cautiously (the kind that made me move faster, not slower). I waved again and we were gone. Two strangers moving through the night with a degree of levity. I also had zero cash, only keys and cards. And a wet shirt. And a fading view of the Apple Maps-mobile. I never looked back in the direction of the young father who traded in his right away for a little mischief..

Just read: The Internet makes it easy to score a quick hit of feel-good emotion without actually doing anything. But if morality is considered a nutrient, then the cheapest forms of online activism are just doughnuts. “It’s the equivalent of refined foods,” says Gray. “It’s engineered to make us like it, but it’s ultimately empty.”

I just read: “Once, in the southern Jordanian desert, Avi (Shmida, an Israeli botanist) pointed out a single succulent green plant where the only other gross was dry, dusty scrub. ‘What do you know when you see a green plant in the desert?’ he asked. I shook my head, and he exclaimed: ‘It’s poison! Otherwise something would’ve eaten it by now.'” – An excerpt from “Who Gets What and Why”. 

According to a speed-reading testsponsored by Staples as part of an e-book promotion (brilliant marketing, by the way), here are the typical speeds at which humans read, and in theory comprehend, at various stages of educational development:Third-grade students = 150 words per minute (wpm)

Eight grade students = 250

Average college student = 450

Average “high level exec” = 575

Average college professor = 675

Speed readers = 1,500

World speed reading champion = 4,700

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