information saturation versus the ducks

i spend a lot of time in front of the computer, and a lot of that time i spend in sort of a crazed state of information saturation. i often find myself reading an article or two, while holding two or more chats with people, and monitoring a couple of irc chatrooms. if it’s early enough in the day, i’ll have a stock ticker cruising as well. or have a vid or audio conversation in progress.
on saturday, when jee and steen and tara and hugh and i were sitting in the marina, jee joked that i might find it difficult to be away from the internet for the duration of the flight to new zealand. it was pretty funny at the time, but i have been thinking about it a bit. today i grabbed the book i am reading, cryptonomicon, and headed down to the boate to cover the sails and take the motor out of the water.
i sat there for a few hours, reading and thinking and enjoying quite a different pace of information absorption. i need to do this more often.
the ducks kept circling, following each other around, up and down the rows of boats. there is a reason why they are the frequent personalities of cartoons. while there are usually some profound feelings inspired by a lone bird soaring in the sky, when you get a duck or two paddling around in the water in front of you, you can’t help but feel you are getting a zen lesson in absurdity.