Thoughtful Present, Media-ful Future

 I have never been a person who would choose to exert energy to run around. I enjoy watching television, and figuring out the plots and characters of my favorite TV shows. The most energy that I exert while watching TV is whatever amount comes out of flipping the channel.

Now, I attempt to get out and run the track at one of my local parks at least 3 times a week. Unfortunately, I only last about 1 mile before my desire to sit down creeps in. This new routine of mine, wake up at 10 am & eat breakfast & watch television, now includes getting off the couch and out of the house to sweat and gasp for air. The thing is, I love it.

I have heard from others that running allows them a time for themselves to think about personal problems, school, & life. In "What Women Want," the character which Mel Gibson portrays pitches advertising ideas to Nike, and his pitch (actually, Helen Hunt's character's pitch) to Nike is a woman running in the early morning. The ad says that the road does not care if you are wearing makeup or don't call or visit often--just that you pay a visit once in a while. The tagline is "No games, just sports." It is sacred, alone time on the pavement that allows the runner to concentrate on oneself without worrying about "games." In my opinion, running is about struggling through something that I dislike, only to come out above it and know that I've done something for my future self. It is not me in the moment that is important, but what is to come--that is what gets me out of the house and running.

So much of what people pay attention to is the present moment, which is dandy and important, but sometimes people forget about planning for the future. These past two weeks, I purchased a new netbook (sidenote: I'm typing this post on it, and I love it), an XBox360, and a 500 GB hard drive. I need a netbook for my classes, and since netbooks do not have internal optical drives, I bought the hard drive so that I could back up my files. This XBox, though, I purchased because of a present moment.

When I was younger, I had all the latest and greatest video game technologies, and I kicked ass at SSX Tricky, Tony Hawk, and Mario Kart. Now, I can barely keep up with my 11 year old brother, because I stopped keeping up with consoles when I entered 7th grade, and I became a cheerleader, and I had other things I wanted to concentrate on.

After buying the XBox and getting the shipping notification, I came to a realization that I should not have bought the console. What was I going to do? I'm a college student and I should be concentrating on writing papers, working my way through college, and hanging out with friends, not concentrate on playing video games. After hours of racking through my brain and figuring out if I wanted to keep the console or not, I realized that with an XBox, I will be able to bond with others over technology and keep up with the technological advances into the future. If I put a little concentration and focus into new technology, I can focus on myself and my future. It may sound strange, but for what some use running, I will be online, multi-player'ing.

Of course, playing Call of Duty: Black Ops will not help me get in shape or ace any exams, but what it will do is keep me informed about media and the way that people use it to interact with others and focus on themselves, for both the present and the future. In games, there's you.