Last night’s AA meeting was superb. This was my first in two weeks, so I was getting antsy, although, true to form, I would have argued that I was fine and didn’t really need to go to a meeting.
I was feeling stressed before I went. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time. I had to go to the supermarket on the way home from work, then get home and make the dinner, then get out to the hall for half-past 7. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to skip it, arguing that I was fine anyway, just as I did with church on Sunday for the very same reason.
But, thankfully God works in mysterious ways and I had already agreed to give someone a lift home so I pretty much had to go.
As I sat in the room, I felt resentments, a sure sign that things aren’t well. I had no desire to share anything at all—I was fine. But, as people started to open up, I found my tortoise mind starting to explore. Then came the identification, followed by a whole range of thoughts about what I would like to share. As usual, I was worrying about how awesome I was going to be in my share. ‘Would people like it? Would they get identification? What if they didn’t? Can’t I just pull the covers over my head?’ You know, all that self-esteem and grandiosity bullshit.
But, when it got to my turn (second to last, following seven great shares!) I had a good idea of what I was going to say. And, d’you know what? It was really helpful to me!
My share
D’you know what I shared about? Tortoise brains and John Cleese! It was inspired by my recent post about OmniFocus and John Cleese. I’ve been thinking more and more about that, you know, the notion that I can’t seem to just be. I can’t go without some form of content input. I’ll invariably have my headphones in, or I’ll be reading my RSS feeds or Twitter at the dining-room table as I eat. I’ve been that way for years now. I think it will have been around 2005 that I discovered podcasts, but I was listening to audio books waaaaay before that.
Podcasts (again)
But this constant input isn’t giving my brain time to be. I took the dogs down onto the beach this morning and it was gorgeous. I paused In Beta and stood listening to the waves lapping the shore. It was lovely. I did that for all of about three minutes, then shouted the dogs and hit play again before heading home.
I shared at last night’s meeting that I was curious about whether I would actually cut down on the weekly podcast queue. I was thinking about it a few weeks ago and, since then, I’ve probably added a couple without unsubscribing from any others. The thing for me to grasp is that I don’t actually need to listen to every episode of every show. But then how will I know which ones I can ignore if I don’t hear them first? Hmmmmm.
I had a good chat in the car taking the other AA attendee home, and on the way home after dropping them off, I listened to episode 3 of Systematic, which I really, really enjoyed and which may just have given me some more knowledge to make my computer life easier.
And today I listened to the [latest episode](http://www.merlinmann.com/roderick/ep-40-status-butter.html) of Roderick on the Line and it was so incredibly good that I actually stopped what I was doing and listened to the last half-hour sitting in the sun out the back. It was fantastic. So podcasts are NOT a waste of time. I guess I just need to be more discerning. Maybe if I cut out the shows that I don’t’ feel I’m getting much from, it would take the pressure off my audio book queue, which is, of course, not the point at all!
It’s all food for thought right now.
