Signal to Noise

Wikipedia uses this alternate definition of signal to noise:
Signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes used informally to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. For example, in online discussion forums and other online communities, off topic posts and spam are regarded as "noise" that interferes with the "signal" of appropriate discussion.
___________________________________________________________

Multiple media outlets are the most effective way to get your message out, from what I am told. If you want something to be heard through the "noise", you need to hit all angles. The problem is, that creates more noise and more need for virtual shouting. After all, one man's signal is another's noise.

The cycle continues. Think of a high school cafeteria. One table has a loud conversation and the others need to elevate the volume of theirs just to be heard. Finally, even the normally quiet chess club is screaming like a bunch of banshees about their allergies to milk and peanuts and wondering if Bobby Fisher ever kissed a girl.

And we all lay claim to the importance and necessity of our specific message. Who is to say the chess club has less right to carry on than the cheerleaders or football team? What's more, our capacity for this method of communicating seems to be increasing. Day by day we spend more engery filtering the noise and wading through minutiae just to get to the message.

I personally feel a little overwhelmed by the situation I have put myself into. I have this blog, the occasional "Blah Blah Blog"" posts, Facebook, and now Twitter, (because apparently I feel as though the world should pay attention to what I am thinking right NOW... and NOW...). None of these outlets are employed to hawk my professional wares. For that I have Linked In and a couple others I don't even remember their names.

This all adds up to a great deal of my time spent "maintaining" these aspects of my life that didn't exist when I was younger. Hell, they didn't really exist for me prior to 2007.

Now my car has total integration of phone and text and social networking and media connection and god only knows what else. I can't hide. There is not aspect of my life that is not "connected" somehow to the noise.

And I'm an amateur. I have friends that are infinitely more savvy and connected than I. They revel in it. They will be the ones who at 60 will still be relevant. If I am still alive, I likely won't be relevant. I can see my elder self as a disenfranchised archetypal Vonnegut character, being both central to my own life and story and totally unnecessary to it at the same time.

Scary.

As I write this, the reggae song "Message to Rudy" is playing in my headphones. "Stop your messing around... better think of your future..." it implores of Rudy. Maybe Rudy was just sick and tired of it all! Perhaps we should all be messing around a little more.

I have seriously contemplated the purchase, (or time share of some sort), of a little place out of the way so I can get away. Maybe all I need to do is toss all my electronic obligations and take a nap. It's a lot cheaper, that's for sure.

I'll start tomorrow. Right now I have to post this to Facebook. And Twitter.