The Steel-cut Oat Media Diet

One of my dreams over the past 20 years has been to ride a BMW R 1250 GS Adventure motorcycle. When I retired a few years ago, I bought my motorcycle and began to ride. Nearly a year ago, I ordered a new leather jacket to reward myself for improving my riding. A few weeks ago, after months of waiting, it finally arrived.

It didn’t fit.

Significant events in one’s life permeate the other things you do. Conversations can veer off into thoughts about leather jackets. YouTube feeds have an odd way of suddenly swerving off into riding tutorials. I mention this as a backdrop to what I want to talk about and hint at why I chose the odd title.

I have been thinking about the best way to gather materials for writing and put myself on the perfect media diet. While thinking about this problem, I set out for a walk.

While walking barefoot in the park near my house in Japan, I heard someone say, “Once around? One big circle around?” It was a dad talking to his son. The boy wanted to make a loop of the park on his bicycle.

I wondered how I could separate this voice so clearly from other conversations and the rustle of leaves in the wind.

Here in Japan, it is unusual to hear English. And I am an English professor. When I hear English, it cuts through the background of Japanese conversations like a plane flying by towing an advertising banner.

“ONCE AROUND? ONE BIG CIRCLE AROUND?” the banner said.

This made me think about communication channels. We hear some sounds clearly, even with noise in the background. What we hear is partially determined by transmission. That is why you should never whisper a secret to a friend in a restaurant. Your whisper will draw attention to your conversation and the very thing you want to keep secret.

I wondered if I could focus on media that get buried in the noise but would benefit me if I could see them. Are there signals I miss because I am not tuned to their frequency?

Our likes and dislikes affect our choice of media. Since I am fond of ice cream, I will use it to explain what I mean.

Imagine media as a stream of ice cream flavors. How would you sample them to have the best experience possible?

If you are a professional ice cream taster, like John Harrison, you will need to taste small amounts with a gold-plated spoon because gold does not change the taste of ice cream. If you are a non-professional, perhaps you will be happiest eating the two or three flavors you love.

Will only eating your favorite flavors mean you are unaware of new ones? If you are serious about ice cream tasting, will you have the same experience as someone who loves eating ice cream? Can a person switch from being a careful note-taking taster to being a gourmand? I don’t know, but these problems also seem true of experiencing media.

I then shared my thoughts about ice cream in an online writing group. I explained how I was using tasting ice cream as a metaphor for sampling a variety of media. Everyone listened patiently and then pointed out things I had not thought about. This took my mind off ice cream for a while.

I had a fresh problem.

Having my thinking changed by feedback made me realize it seems to be a universal experience in serious groups of creative, supportive people.

In online rooms, people often introduce themselves. Someone says something like this:

“Hey, everyone. I’m Frank calling in from New Zealand, where I am an architect, breed Japanese carp, and paint. I had to cut back on my painting, which I really like because it keeps interfering with my job as an architect.”

After Frank shares a bit more about himself, someone says this:

“Frank, thank you for sharing the photos of your fantastic paintings and some buildings you have worked on. Have you considered cutting back on your job as an architect to spend more time painting? You come across as an exceptional painter holding yourself back because you are a good architect.”

After a moment of silence, Frank responds.

“Wow! That is amazing. I have been thinking the same thing recently, but always felt I needed to stick with my job as an architect at the company my father started so long ago.”

In writing groups, other participants often redirect people, changing not only their writing, but their life’s trajectory, sometimes profoundly.

But that means people don’t know who they are, doesn’t it? And, since you and I are also people, it is quite probable that we also don’t know exactly who we are.

That means we can’t search for the right things to put into our media diet since we don’t know the person we are feeding, doesn’t it?

While returning to my problem of consuming the perfect media diet, I must mention steel-cut oats. Steel-cut oats are not like instant oatmeal; they look like chopped-up rice grains. They take longer to cook. Some say they are tastier and healthier than other types of oats. I eat them because I want to lose five kilograms to fit into my new leather BMW motorcycle jacket, which is much tighter than my other two jackets, despite them all being the same size 50.

Life is like that sometimes.

My search for thinness and for things to write about has become muddled in my head. And who am I really, anyway? This has complicated my search for the ideal media diet somewhat. While slimming down to fit my jacket, how should I proceed?

Some strategies might help.

In a world of abundant media or ice cream, it doesn't seem possible that one will taste even a mildly representative sample. So the first thing is to accept that. We must inevitably fail at such a task. Best to be chill about it.

We want to avoid any stress; it might trigger binge eating.

Another strategy is to enlist the help of a guide. We need to find someone who knows us well and can point us to the various experiences of flavor that we might like. This will save dollops of time so we can get to the cream of our task as soon as possible. It seems crucial to seek people with unique skills and perspectives—a group of people with different tastes—to gain from their input while pursuing the ultimate flavor. Other people are often better than we are at knowing who we are.

Perhaps we should think outside the box—or carton—and experience flavors of things other than media or ice cream to develop our ability to discern different tastes.

We are all in a creative feedback loop. Sampling media flavors changes us, enhancing our ability to discern new flavors, which changes us even more.

Before leaving you, I need to return to steel-cut oats. They are almost pure nutrition. They are not delicious unless you add ingredients such as fruit and nuts. Should a media diet also be purely nutritious or bring pleasure as well? From now on, I will seek a balance of sustenance and pleasure in my media diet.

We must include a search for self-awareness as we sift through media in an endless process of aligning our taste with who we truly are.

Bon appétit!