Who needs a subscription to magazines?
In the past I've mentioned that Arts and Letters Daily is my very favorite way of wasting my time. If I'm going to allow myself to coach-potato for a while, clikcing over to Arts and Letters Daily instead is a much better, and more enjoyable, choice. Of course I can fall asleep reading an article with the same frequency that I fall asleep in front of the television, but if something seeps in, let it me interesting information.
In the past (before the internet?) I had numerous subscriptions to magazines on a rather wide variety of topics. I let the vast majority of these expire because of time (and space) considerations. There's always too much to read, and though it rarely happens that former topics of interest no longer interest me, there's only so much that someone can read without hindering his or her productivity.
But today, via A&L Daily, I've come close to renewing those subscriptions, and more. One simple page concentrates scores of articles that I'd love to read. And of course I'm not limited to the journals to which I subscribe - this method of access continually opens me to topics in which I wouldn't necessarily take an interest, or magazines with an orientation to which I wouldn't ordinarily devote my time. Less paper may be coming into the house, but the amount of articles worth reading, articles that are easily accessible to me, continues to grow and grow.
Is this really wasting time? My estimate is that I click over to A&L Daily about three times a week, each time finding more that I'd like to read than I can permit myself. If I have other, pressing, tasks that demand attention, perhaps it's a waste. But if I define what I'm doing as expanding my horizons, who's to say that I'm not actually making good use of that time.
Go to: Get a Life!