Lent like they did it before computers
Originally published at A schism in your day. Please leave any comments there.
Yeah, it’s that time again. It used to be a little more, I dunno, exciting? This year, I’m not sure I’d mention it at all were it not for the fact that my presence on the ‘net will be impacted. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
So, Lent starts on Wednesday. Early this year; I think the earliest ever in the time I’ve been keeping track. For me, for the past few years anyway, that’s meant giving something up, or adding something, or otherwise shaking things up a little bit. It seems like a good thing to do, even if only because life tends to stagnate a little from time to time. Once again, I’ll refer you to this link for the wonderful reasons why Lent is good for all, not just Catholics, which I am definitely not. I’m grateful that that link hasn’t gone down in years and years. Dunno what I’d do if it did.
In the past, I’ve done a few different things, given up orgasm, meat, chocolate, coffee. I’ve tried to add meditation and exercise. Some of these were successes, others were not. It’s weird that the failures were all in the most recent years. I guess maybe my zeal has faded with age. Last year when I was thinking of what to do, Selene suggested I give up the internet.
Yeah. Right.
But you know, the more I thought of it, the more I warmed to the idea. My arguments at the time were that it wasn’t possible for me to give it up. I need it for work, and I do all my banking online, and the only way anyone gets in touch with me is e-mail. All that stuff. Some of those arguments are valid, and so I need to consider them. But, for the most part, my net usage is all about wasting time. I have often asked myself what in the hell I did with all my time beofre the internet came around. You know what? I really don’t know. Seriously. I mean, I know I watched more TV, I read and wrote more. But those things couldn’t possibly account for the hours I spend daily with the internet.
And, to be perfectly honest, I haven’t been an active participant lately-it’s all been passive. My Flickr photostream hasn’t seen an influx of pictures since the fall. I don’t blog much at all. I’m not involved in any forums or meaningful exchanges on the internet. The most interactive thing I do on the net is instant message people I used to actually spend time with in person. The vast majority of my non-work time online is spent reading news sites, looking at other people’s pictures, and watching YouTube videos. Something seems wrong with that. Seriously.
When I first told Opal I was thinking of going offline for Lent, I was saying that I needed time away from all of that. Opal suggested a more active approach in that I shouldn’t look at it is a time to get away from the crap on the net so much as a time to refocus on the stuff that matters. So, rather than looking at everyone’s pictures, I could concentrate on taking more of my own. It’s been so long since I’ve gone out just to take pictures. Rather than trying to come up with something to blog about, I can write for me again. That’s the plan anyway.
And, more and more, I just feel like I need a break from all this tech stuff. The days are getting longer, but somehow that doesn’t matter. I get to see a sunset on my way home from work from behind the steering wheel on the rare day that the sun’s out. Wouhou. That’s nothing that energizes me. I want to relearn what it was I did for my soul before it got planted in from of all these endless screens. Maybe this is a way to do it, I dunno.
So, on the off chance that anyone at all will notice, take this as notification that I’m going offline from Ash Wednesday to Easter. If you want to get ahold of me, you’ll have to give me a call. If you absolutely must e-mail me, use my work account. If you have neither my phone number nor my work account, you’re shit out of luck. I haven’t quite worked out the details of all of this. I may allow myself an hour online each week just to pay bills and check e-mail on the off chance there’s a total meltdown I missed or something, but for the most part, I’m offline. We’ll see you all in March.