Embracing Coffee & Complexity… and what does this have to do with media?
For the last decade or so, I’ve taken my coffee the same way every morning: pre-ground at Peet’s coffee and then made with boiling water in a big French press. Then, last week I bought a snazzy Capresso drip coffee maker with a gold filter and a timer, as well as an equally snazzy Capresso burr grinder. I confess that I’ve coveted the burr grinder longer — since I like freshly ground coffee — but that my creeping cholesterol level and the dangers of the French press wooed me to the safety of the drip drip drip.So far, so good. But what was once a simple process of throwing coffee into the press, adding boiling water and then stirring has transformed into something more complicated: either I’m setting up the machine the night before, or wandering into the kitchen in my customary early morning daze to determine: a) have I ground enough coffee the day or days before or do I have to grind more? b) are the carafe and filter clean? c) determining if I’m going to make more than 5 cups or less because in the latter case I now have to press a little button.
Aside from the lower cholesterol bonus, the benefits of the new coffee complexity is that — if I’m efficient enough to do so before collapsing at night — I can set a timer and wake with the coffee already made and piping hot, or I can just hit a button if I haven’t set the timer.
But there are now MORE steps and MORE decisions to be made, just to have my morning coffee.
Perhaps it’s the woolgathering of the incipient New Year, but this seems like a ripe metaphor for the increasing number of choices we all have to make with media these days, and, in fact, with most things.
There is something to be said for a limited range of choices… it makes accomplishing life so much easier. I spend so much time on routine maintenance of machines, databases, supplies for daily life… that I often don’t have time for THINKING.
“Set it and forget it” is an increasingly rare option, these days.
Is it any wonder people are overwhelmed?
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