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       Stardate: 20200408.2114
       Location: Garage                                                   
       Input Device: MinervaX Med Cart                                 
       Software: vim                                              
       Audio: Rain on the roof, space heater.
       Visual: Ubuntu MATE
       Emotional State: Slight irritation.
                                                                 
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       I was ruminating on the term, "constructed narrative," recently and 
       it seems to be stuck in my head so I guess I need to write about it.
       I'm not really too sure the exact definition of the phrase, but the
       phrase seems to come in and out of my consciousness over the past 
       few days.  I'm not really sure how it even came about for me or 
       what the context was.
       
       From what "constructed narrative" sounds like to me is basically a
       story someone created.  It could be fact or fiction, true or false, 
       or whatever.  It could be the nightly news, it could be a magazine
       article, it could be a broadcast from a ham radio, it could be a 
       post on gopherspace, like this one.
       
       My composition of the "constructed narrative" of this post is 
       dependent on my thoughts at the moment, any message I want to 
       communicate (which I'm not really sure if there is one, since my
       mind is just barfing stuff on the screen), my choice of words, my
       current (lack of) ability to write anything, etc...  The story is
       a construct to communicate with.
       
       Perhaps the phrase seems relevant to me right now because of all of
       the (mis)information that is out there that seems to be affecting 
       people.  I have not been keeping in touch with too much news or 
       what is out there in the conventional media (televised news 
       broadcasts, newspapers, social media, etc.)  I am informed of what is 
       going on through work and what I hear from other people and their 
       experiences.  From the little that I have heard, the information is 
       a bit messy.  There seems to be much noise and it is hard to know
       what is true.  Sifting through all of that seems to be a lot of work,
       so I have been staying away from all of that even more so.
       
       Even before COVID-19, I found myself going farther and farther away
       from conventional media.  In general, the "constructed narrative" was 
       not going in the direction that appealed to me.  The material in the
       forefront was noisy and did not really seem to have much substance.
       Sometimes, the content seemed to even have its own agenda or was 
       meant as an instrument of coercion.  The content I was looking for 
       seemed further and further out of reach and I had to sift through
       a big pile of junk before I got a nugget of content.  The more I 
       sifted, the less I trusted...
       
       Maybe that's something there.  Maybe I am just not as trusting of 
       the "constructed narratives" of these days.  Maybe I am just fed
       up with all of this mental overhead with all of the different
       narratives that are being told.  Maybe I am just fed up with all
       of the data harvesting and privacy concerns.  Maybe I am sick of
       being gamified for a nugget of content and ending up as points
       of data in somebody's report.  Maybe I am just not willing to sift 
       through so much garbage to get to that nugget of truth and it would 
       be better to go through other means or have the truth come to me 
       in its own time.
       
       Well, whatever it was, it was enough to have be barf this entry
       out into the gopherspace so I don't have to think about it anymore
       this evening.
       
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