An Antidote To 'Screen Sickness'.

by hillary_step 20 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  hillary_step

  Hello,

  A post by You Know, our local hero, that was basically filled with speculative nonsense and an eccentric interpretation of scripture has gone on, as of this moment, to generate almost 300 messages, and has been viewed over 5,400 times. An alarming waste of time imho.

  As a result of this our lawns have overgrown, our families have been neglected, the parrot is losing its feathers due to starvation and the real world has passed us by with an understandable glare in our direction.

  Yes, ‘screen sickness’; that desire to converse ad nasuem with digital acquaintances whose eyes ( or in YK’s case ‘eye’ ) we have never seen, has spread greedily among us.

  In his wonderful essay on ‘Painting As A Pastime’, Winston Churchill gave some excellent advise for those who find their concentration becoming obsessed or overwrought, he said:

  Change is the master key. A man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using it and tiring it, just in the same way as he can wear out the elbows of his coat. There is, however, this difference between the living cells of the brain and inanimate articles: one cannot mend the frayed elbows of a coat by rubbing the sleeves or the shoulders; but the tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened, not merely by rest, but by using others parts……The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is therefore a policy of first importance to….man.

  Now, granting the validity of this argument to the great man, what ‘change’ or ‘hobby’ would you recommend to someone who finds that the balance of their mind is perhaps becoming excessively wound up with WTS & XJW matters, an activity my long-suffering wife describes as the ‘Wimbledon without a winner’.

  What works for you?

  HS
• 

  slipnslidemaster

  I try to relax by downloading porn, reading the news or programming when I'm not posting here.

  Slipnslidemaster: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

  - Ben Franklin
• 

  larc

  Hillary,

  Thanks for the reminder. I am going to plant three flowering mums for my wife. I am also going to write an introduction on some research I am doing with a collegue. I figure if I declare this, I will be more likely to do this and other things on my to do list. I am spending entirely too much time, reading and posting here.
• 

  waiting

  Well.......downloading porn aside, these are my things:

  1. Have a dachshund who's going to have pups in about a week (obvious she was doing more than just *viewing* porn.

  2. My garden has received 16 bales of pinestraw and is happy after I spread 'em out.

  3. Still can't cook well - but bought yet another cookbook.

  4. My husband still makes me smile after 20 years.

  5. My beautiful daughter is getting married in 2 weeks (and the Drifters are singing at her wedding on the beach. Ain't it cooooool.

  6. My sister's flying in for the wedding (famous Patio)!

  7. And.........taa daa.......I've lost 15 pounds. Ain't it too cool.

  Life's pretty good some days. Thanks, Hilliary, for the positive mood swing.

  waiting
• 

  hillary_step

  Slip,

  I try to relax by downloading porn, reading the news or programming

  I presume that given your chosen activities, 'try' is the operative word here! Obviously a lot of vibrant energy to focus. Why not resurrect Eric Clapton's 'Drugs Are For Losers' program! OK, calm down, Just teasing…..

  Larc,

  I look forward, if I am allowed, to reading your embryonic work when completed. Your posts are always of interest to me. I have found re-reading E.M.Forster, William Gerhardie ( Of Mortal Love ) & Hesse ( Narziss and Goldmund especially ) clears the corridors of my mind.

  Waiting,

  You do sound as if you have a life full! Congratulations on our daughters wedding and enjoy the Drifters - memories are made of this…

  HS
• 

  D wiltshire

  HS,

  I have my own business that is slow at the moment, and I find myself on the forum a little bit too much right now, but it keeps the anxiety's down for now.

  I still go foor 6-9 mile hikes on the many south bay trails that really give me 2-3 hours of quality meditation.

  If someone lived a trillion X longer than you, and had a billion X more reasoning ability would he come to the same conclusions as you?
• 

  GinnyTosken

  Hillary_Step,

  I get an enforced three-day sabbatical each week while I'm at work. I work in another town, unloading boxes at a warehouse, and my workmates are primarily interested in Nascar, car trading, and deer hunting.

  It is a refreshing change of scenery. Last weekend, a box of toilet plungers broke open, and one of my coworkers put two of the red rubber bottoms under his shirt and drove around on his fork lift telling we girls, "Eat your hearts out." The weekend before that, a tent was on display as part of a raffle. Two men wandered in to check it out. While they were inside, another man zipped up the door from the outside. About 30 of us coming back from lunch looked on in amusement. Two men alone together in a tent--imagine the implications! No concerns about political correctness here.

  I listen to a classic rock station while I work, let my mind wander, and enjoy the simple pleasure of physical exertion. My shifts are twelve hours long, beginning at 6:30 a.m., so by the time I return to my sister's house, I am exhausted. Most of the time I have a little bite to eat, take a long shower, and go directly to bed.

  On Saturdays, I listen to Prairie Home Companion on the way home.

  By the time I return to my own house on Monday evenings, the tension is gone and the concerns of the board seem small and far away. The board has gone on without me for three days, and I am reminded that it is my daily choice to read and to reply. Whenever I wish, I may leave it alone and say nothing.

  Ginny

  P.S. You recently posted a quotation about how we'd be less inclined to judge a person harshly if we understood their background and personal struggles. I wish I had copied it. Would you mind posting it again or e-mailing it to me?
• 

  larc

  Hillery,

  I will try to explain my basic idea. It has to do with the accuracy of human jugement. The specific data I am looking at, has to do with the judgement managers make when they appraise their employees performance. The standard way of determining their accuracy is to compare their ratings with someone else's ratings who also knows the employees. Let us suppose that two managers each independently rate a group of employees on a one to five rating scale. You can then calculate the correlation between these two sets of ratings. Correlations in this situation, range from zero to 1.0. A zero would mean there is no agreement at all and 1.0 would mean there is perfect agreement, that is the two sets of ratings are identical. Now, on this continuum, the average correlation for appraisal data is about .64. This technique and this value has been used for about 100 years. However, there is a mistake in accepting this number. One manager doing the rating is being compared to an imperfect standard, that is, another manager. If there was a way to compare a person to a perfect standard, then the number obtained should be higher than .64 because error has been removed. Some people have tryed to do this by correlating one person's jugement with the sum of a large number of experts. As the number of experts increases, their summed ratings approaches a true score with no error in it, and a person's correlation with this sum does go up as expected. There also, is a correction formula for eliminating error. However, in the past one hundred years, it is not been applyed to this situation. It can be shown that the sqaure root of the correlation eliminates error. In my example of .64, the square root yeilds a value of .80. I have found that correlating a person's rating with a large group of summed ratings produces almost identical results to taking the square root of a person's rating with one other person. Thus, to determine a person's accuracy, you don't need a large group of summed ratings to find this out. Two people and the sqare root will do. This is important because in most work situations you simply do not have a large group available to make these ratings.

  This may look like a tiny obscure piece of information, but the results have major implications for determining the validity of job selection methods, and whether or not these methods are biased against minorities and women. The determination of bias is based on the foundation of what I am studying. To use a .80 rather than a .64, could make a difference in saying yay or nay regarding a selection or an appraisal method.

  There a method of determining someone's accuracy without in either another person or a large group of summed ratings. This is done by having someone rate a group of employess and then have them rate the group again some months later. When this is done, the average value is .81, which very near the .80 value found when taking the square root of the correlation between two people. Thus, all three methods, 1. The square root of two peole's correlation, 2. The correlation of one versus many, and 3. The correlation of one person at two different points in time, produce nearly identical results. The method I thought of, #1, is by far the simplest and easiest to obtain.
• 

  Introspection

  Hi HS,

  Now, granting the validity of this argument to the great man, what ¡¥change¡¦ or ¡¥hobby¡¦ would you recommend to someone who finds that the balance of their mind is perhaps becoming excessively wound up with WTS & XJW matters, an activity my long-suffering wife describes as the ¡¥Wimbledon without a winner¡¦.

  Good question.. Well, frankly I am hopeful that there will be others who have an interest in comparative religion such as I do, but instead I find that I have to be careful what I talk about because there is the potential to turn a lot of people off because of a certain degree of sensitivity.. Other than that, there are also many who are not interested in religion, and that's fine. I only hope that both those who have an interest and those who don't realize a study of religion does not necessarily mean you are a religious person, so whether one wants to stick with the Judeo-Christian tradition or if you are an atheist, it can be approached purely as a matter of intellectual interest. I just figure it would be the natural step to take, but I guess the one thing we agree on is "the truth is not the truth" so we tend to stick with that.

  But in terms of something practical, I think physical activities will help break the cycle for excessive time online in general - I'm about to get off my butt for a much needed break on the treadmill. But I do think some kind of comparative study would be beneficial because it simply puts things in a larger context, so that you're not caught up with "witness issues" all the time. I would recommend taking a comparative religion class to anyone (or simply pick up a book such as The World's Religions by Huston Smith, a widely used undergraduate text) for the simple reason that it is educational. What you do with the knowledge is up to you.
• 

  DannyBear

  HS,

  Tomorrow Iam cleaning out my garage, and laying out the design of my workbench. Let's see this will be apprx the 16th weekend I have resolved to do so.

  Good advice friend.

  Danny