No, I don’t mean “Dave Winer’s thoughts”:www.reallysimplesyndication.com/riverOfNe… on RSS reader design exactly, although that’s part of it. It’s more the way we in the technology community interact with the world. Hundreds of news feeds, company chat, external IRC channels, private AIM, email dinging every 5 minutes, and the constant flow of tweets. At home, we’re connected essentially 24/7; on the road, the iPhone brings it all with us. Plus there’s the never-ending pile of work to do on too many projects.
Technology news or politics or development moves too fast and doesn’t slow down. It’s easy to feel like you’re being pulled down the river, one hand struggling to hold on to the raft and the other deep in the current, information overload all around.
Since coming back from C4 I’d been fighting a cold, which developed into a cough and sinus infection and fever and whatever worse. I finally hit the doctor up last week and just unplugged, checking email twice a day for emergencies only. I spent the rest of the day sleeping, reading, and with family — a self-imposed vacation for my brain as much as my body.
Four days later I’m feeling quite a bit better, and trying to think about what changes to make in my schedule so as to not wind up insane or dead before I’m 35. But even as I say that I acknowledge that it’s stretching the truth, because I’ve never been happier.
