I stood in the airport this weekend with the father of a newlywed daughter. I lamented how fast life was going, not just the big stuff...but the days crammed full of stuff. Just stuff. He said "And how old is your youngest?" And I laughed when he said "Welp, it'll get slower in about 18ish years!" He should know. He has eight children, two jobs and a wife with two jobs and I could see it in his face...He knew EXACTLY what I was talking about. Life is like a merry go round that keeps going faster until you beg for relief, or fall off on your rump. I'm taking the easy way out so as to avoid landing on my arse. I will graciously ask the conductor to let me off for just a few brief moments so I can catch my breath.
This has been a long time coming. My mind is suffering sheer exhaustion. I am overwhelmed and over stimulated most days. Something's got to give. And so, with full fanfare I've decide what that would be.
Dun-dun-dun....I'm taking an internet fast. I know!! I know. Craziness. When I thought about all the stuff I'd have to do to prepare for this, my mind went a bit crazy!
I have to get all my library books on ILL NOW, so I'll be able to get them, arrange for Jamie to do Bountiful Baskets, make sure all my school peeps have my contact information, set an away message on my freelance boards, print out all my knitting patterns for current projects since I usually just look at a screen , finish 9 articles to finish out a contract, write down a ton of names/numbers and addresses for various things, order homeschool stuff and anything else we'll need for our month of downtime (Amazon anyone?? Can't be without my good stevia.) So much. Just so much to severe the ties the internet has wrapped around me.
I'm not anti -internet at all. I am just anti-time suck. Yep, I get sucked in. So many wonderful articles to read, blogs to follow, projects to look at, people to talk to and at the end of the time my brain is anything but calm and settled. It's like it will not stop. I can find something I love and then drive myself crazy looking at all the better things. And then something even BETTER comes along and it's crazy making.
So what do I hope to gain from this? Time. Sanity. Reality. I want to be the manager of my time. I want good enough to be good enough rather than one thing out of a bilion that I'm "giving a whirl." I want my creativity back. I want to know that those I interact with are people I *WANT* to interact with and not just because they are a convenient person to interact with because we share the same internet space. I want to know how much of my life is authentic and how much is lived for display purposes. I can't answer those questions without doing this.
So from July 1st-August 1st, you won't be seeing me online. Like at all. If you need me, you'll have to use good old fashioned phones, letters or texts (hahahah!!!) I am not stamping and stomping away, just slowly backing up to see, for myself, how much different life would be without so much "connection." I'm all about connection but it's a good test to see how much effort one must put into REAL things to keep it real. I'm sure it will suck. And I'm sure I'll miss a lot, but hey it's good practice for the apocalypse right?
What would you do if you were without internet for a month? What preps would you have to make? Anyone? Bueller?
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