A Summer Away From the Digital World.
A few weeks ago I decided to disconnect from the Internet, and it's been amazing. It's been so long since my mind was not on the Internet or should I say the global social consciousness. It's been really great, it's like my senses are coming back to life. I might have been a bit extreme in my use of the Internet, I use it for everything, banking, shopping, speaking to people, reading, all my media, everything I do. The Internet has formed my opinions, is the source of all my knowledge, nearly my entire social life, the Internet (and other media like video games) is very good at mimicking the satisfaction of life, but it's not life, it's death.
Just turning it off for a few weeks made me have a lot of realisations, most of all maybe was the one that I had to use my brain. Back in the olden days, the internet required the use of your brain, solving problems, figuring out how things work and how to break/circumvent/fix them. Now the internet only requires that you know which words to type into Google and it will tell you the rest, sometimes not even that, you can always just go with whatever the machine brain suggests for you. Being free of the internet I suddenly found how hard it was to pay a bill, had to go all the way down to the bank, and even talk to real humans, insanity.
Not just pay a bill, but without Netflix, what would I watch? Strangely I very much enjoyed the few DVD's I found hanging around from an age long forgotten. It made me remember an old TED talk about choice and how too much of it makes us unhappy. Of course I remembered a TED talk, from YouTube, because that's my entire brain now. What I read in some post, an article, what someone said on Skype once, or in a video, mostly people I have no idea who is. Something else I found besides DVD's, books I never seemed to have the time to read. I used to love books, but it seems my attention span is dead. Without the internet providing what it does though, reading books became a treat again. Sitting out in the sun, reading, listening to the wind, absorbing the sun, really taking it all inn too, and not because I knew it could make a pretty picture to show everyone how nice my life is on some social media, but simply for my own sake.
Today I had to break my hiatus, someone had left me an important e-mail, and before I knew it I was reading reddit and downloading music and all kinds of stuff, and now I'm here. But I came here with a purpose, I'm making it official. Today I'm breaking up with the Internet, the relationship has simply become far to co-dependent to be healthy. This summer I'm going off the grid as they say. I ordered tickets for a festival in Holland, and living in Norway I'm going to ride a bike there. No, a bike, as in bicycle, not even an electric one, one power 100% by blood, sweat and tears. And instead of cramming over 9000 books into my Samsung Pad, I'll be packing books, made of dead trees and ink. I'll not be using any GPS either, get this crazy idea, I'm going to ask for directions, mind blowing concept I know. When I get to towns and cities I'll buy DVD's and CD's, rip them myself, convert them to a usable format (x264 and acc) before I move on. I'm not going 100% off tech, I still want music and the occasional late night movie, but only things I'm able to get through physical trade with live humans. No signals, no TV, no radio, no internet, even news will be strictly from news papers.
My idea behind this is simply saying yes to life, and leave this cheap imitation of it behind. The internet is great for people who use it right, but for people like me who use it as a substitute for real life, it's more like an addiction that begins to eat away at your very humanity. I want to solve problems that arise in my life, not google them, learn through observation and experience, really feel life. The internet is a level I cleared long ago so why do I keep playing it over and over? Even now, writing this, I feel some kind of false sense of accomplishment, like it's feeding an always present ego, clearly a learned response as I in no way really believe this to be real.
For anyone of you who find yourself in the same situation, I'll recommend you take a few weeks off and just try it out. Notice how often your mind goes back to something you saw or read on the internet, notice how often you feel the pull to go google something, or look up some music, or browse some movies, or check your email or other social media, or share something with near strangers you'll never meet, really feel the hold it has on you and how much of your every day life and even thoughts are ruled by it. And notice all the things around you that you start noticing now that the internet is not there to give you that quick fix.
For me, even something little like having to call for a taxi, or call to order a pizza was something I didn't even know I missed. Having to call and talk to someone, ask about all the toppings, writing down on paper what I wanted so I could finally make my order, even that made me feel alive. Sitting around all day I had to think about things to do, taking a long bath instead of a shower, take a walk, going to see the waterfall up the street, throwing some rocks into it, see if I could make them bounce on the lake above it. And all that quiet time just reading, reading off paper, no distractions but birds singing. Every now and then I came across a word I was not sure about, and then my mind went "internet", but I resisted and read on. One of these days I'll buy a dictionary, more dead trees to carry around, but it's better for now.
The internet is so filled with conflict you'd think the whole world was a terrible place, but it's not, almost everything around me is wonderful, and I had forgotten. I'm really looking forward to my trip this summer, to seeing parts of Europe I've been through before but mostly only driven by, this will be a whole new perspective, a new way of seeing it, and in my opinion a better way. Someone wise once said; it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey, and someone else said; stop and smell the roses. This is what I'll be doing this summer, and that is why I'll not be here, to the rest of the world I might as well be dead, and nothing gives me more joy to think about. Breaking free from this silly prison we've created for ourselves where we all feel that if nobody sees us do it it doesn't matter. You'll see you do it, you'll feel you do it, you'll learn and experience, and that is what really matters.
Do not fall for this false validation of your ego, your ego can validate itself far better than any number on a page can. Besides, the ego is just a lie we need to explore the fracture. This is why I encourage anyone who get this far in reading my rant, to not upvote this, nor comment on it, I'll not be around to see it anyway. And you'll not be around to see what becomes of me, no online journal, no photos, no musings, rants or art to share unless you're standing right in front of me.
Goodbye Internet, maybe I'll see you again come fall, if not you'll find me on a beach in paradise.