Forty-two Days Without Hal

It took me about 48 hours to see that this six week experiment of doing without the Internet or cyberspace in any capacity was not only a good thing but not nearly as difficult as I feared that it would be. I was a little like a lost puppy that first day, two days before Thanksgiving, and was in bed at six o'clock (there would be two more days like this) but by the second day I was simply enjoying the benefit of not having to press "enter" on anything for a fix. I found that I had all kinds of time to do household chores. I didn't necessarily do them but I had time to. I noticed that my reading was done in longer increments. It had been a while since I sat down and read for two or three hours uninterrupted. I've been reading slower and underlining instead of slashing wildly with a highlighter. These sessions have been sit down meals not quick snacks. I had been in the habit of cutting out dozens of articles from the day's newspapers to read rapid fire as time permitted but now I'm reading the whole newspaper. I found that I had to listen closer to talk radio or radio news programs for there was no Internet research to be done on the subject when I sat down to the computer at night. As my wife and I were on a long drive I listened to a financial program on XM that offered some interesting thoughts. Normally I would have paid limited attention to it while planning on viewing its website later on but I knew that I had to commit some of the speaker's thoughts to memory right then. My television viewing may have increased 100% but that's really only about an hour a night over the previous 30 minutes. I do not miss Drudge. Whereas previously I checked the news about once and hour throughout the day I am now satisfied to hear it at 6am and then not again until 4pm and then again before bed. I don't know where the stock market is today and I don't have any idea what next week's weather is forecast to be. The only thing I miss about email is corresponding with our son but the telephone will suffice for now and I did send him a long letter written in cursive. The biggest difference is obviously the blog. That's at least two hours a day that I now have to read leisurely and retire early. I don't think that my consideration for the problems of the day has been diminished at all. In fact it seems that I am more relaxed as I think through the issues, meditating upon them. My talk radio listening had been generally 7 pm to 10 pm as I wrote the blog with an additional twenty minutes to and from work. I only get to hear Rush on my days off. During this first 14 days I spent much less time at the computer, so talk radio is down. Also, I feel a little bit less anxious over the issues of the day but at the same time a little more convinced and determined.

It has been 28 days, two-thirds of the way through this experiment. I've been getting a little bit itchy from time to time to continue with the blog but have not forgotten the reason I ventured into this experiment to begin with.  I do not want to imbibe as I did before. I want to enjoy the reading as I do one beer and no more. I don't want to become inebriated with information. I want to chew my meals for better digestion. How I am going to do this, I have two weeks, Lord willing. to decide. I had a conversation this morning with a professor from a local college who enjoys, as I do, coffee and a comfortable arm chair at Starbucks. We are the same age and share very similar interests although our political philosophy is probably miles apart. Today's conversation touched upon mistakes made in our youth. He looked at boredom as the chief culprit which is similar to my conviction that idle time is an open door for idiots to walk through. I had very little idle time previous to this six week experiment. I have it now and found that quality meditation can fill much of it but not all of it. Whatever changes I may make will give me more time away from the Internet and I have to find a way to constructively fill it.

Well, it's been forty-two days since I put away the many uses of the computer other than the word processor that these words are being written on and I almost feel a hesitation to begin again. In retrospect, was this concern I had only with the computer or was it also with my overall compulsion to analyze anything. I've been analyzing one thing or another for the past 40 years since I was a communications analyst in the army. Scripture tells us that examination should begin with ourselves to see if we are in the faith but it also tells us to examine teachings that we hear in light of Scripture. Examination of the Bible itself only proves its veracity but we are not to attempt to analyze the mind of God apart from what He Himself tells us. I mentioned in a previous blog that if I were to label my philosophy of life it might be called the 70 year philosophy or some such title. We have only one life to live which I for the sake of order describe to be 70 years. The great peril of the agnostic is that he fails to cast a vote in the allotted time, thinking that his abstention is in some way wise and humble. The great peril of the narcissist is that he sees his life as living on in his reputation after he himself departs and therefore lives for what he will leave. Neither one has analyzed their philosophy, for the agnostic does not want to be wrong in the here-and-now and the narcissist does not want to be called wrong later. Neither wants to examine in-depth and make any stand. My compulsion to analyze does not frighten me but the possible failure to analyze, or examine, myself to see that I am always in the faith...does. The more one analyzes the world, the more improbable it becomes to analyze oneself.

This is the third day after unlocking the computer. I have had one surprise. When I go to any news site I get a very uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that I do not get with newspapers or books. It's the same information but comes with something that I find unsettling, that being speed and enhanced images. There was a silly, filler song on Elvis Presley's Blue Hawaii album called Ito Eats or something like that. I remember this song for I remember just about all of Elvis's songs up to the mid-sixties. The lyrics start this way, Ito eats like teeth are out of style. My habits of reading Internet news was like reading as if thinking is out of style. The format, the visuals, the brightness of the screen in a darkened room and the quickness of referencing anything in the world make it news and information on steroids. I drink only dark beer, for to this day domestic lagers take me back to a time in my early twenties when I flushed my system out night after night with them. No, I can't go back to this great blessing of the Internet, as some describe it, with the same abandon. This much I know and am thankful for. I'll pick this computer up as I pick up a pistol or a shotgun, with a healthy dose of respect for it's potential misuse. My Scripture reading more than doubled in the past six weeks for I read at length most every night. Has my personality changed? Maybe my blog entries will give a clue. As for the blog I hope to limit the posts considerably. I enjoy writing book reviews and have one ready to post and a second book that I will be going to in a few minutes when I log out and close this cover. Maybe this little foray into self-examination will encourage someone else to look a bit closer to their own cyber habits.