Small Disconnections

I went to a writing conference Saturday without my laptop. For eight hours I wrote by hand in a notebook. Arriving at the college, I had trouble with the wifi. I couldn't think why I needed my phone at all and powered it down. I turned it on at lunch to call my wife but turned it back off. Writing by hand was good. I could have typed more words, but there was no door prize for most words written. It felt good to be fully there at the conference instead of checking email, Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times, and every other damn online thing. 

Later, at home, I turned the phone on to check email (spam) and the (bad) news. I found an article about a guy who has blockaded all news since the election. Rather than read the whole thing, I began writing this. Why read about someone making good choices when I can make my own? 

My writing last week was spurred by Michael Harris's books The End Of Absence and Solitude, both about the loss of quiet and solitude in a "connected" world. I avoided Facebook last week unhappy with how much time I'm spending there. I limited Twitter to five minutes once a day.

Here's the worst thing about people who disconnect: they write things like this. The evangelist sins more than his flock but still calls them sinners. Don't let me tell you how to live. I'm just trying to convince myself. I know I'm a sinner. 

In another article this week a tech writer ditched online news for newspapers. He coined a Michael Pollen-like rule: "Get news. Not too quickly. Avoid social." I like the article and the writer, but during his two months off social media news he had tweeted a dozen times most days about, wait for it, the news. I follow him and had read those tweets, but when he wrote of unplugging, I wanted to believe, just as I want to believe I can do the same thing. Given that he didn't unplug, I really can do the same thing. 

Let he who is without social media be the first to cast phones. Or something like that. 

No matter what I claim about disconnecting, I'm far from living the life of Thoreau. I want to live that life, but I also want to play piano. It's just I'm unwilling to practice and learn how. I'm ready to drop social media and online news just so long as I don't have to, you know, drop any of it. 

Two years ago I unfollowed everyone on Twitter. Why not just delete the account? Well, it's my name and I would hate to lose that. Besides, I knew I would go back. I'm a waffler and hypocrite. But that time away informed how I rejoined Twitter. Last year, I unfollowed everyone who spread bad news. That was almost everyone given who is running the country, but I wanted to be thoughtful again. I'm never going to be perfect and I'm unlikely to quit Twitter, but I can always be more thoughtful. 

I want to choose what I do instead of following the crowd. It's a lot of work to be thoughtful, but yesterday my phone was an inert lump instead of a demanding master. I focused on writing and the people around me. Even my eyes felt more focused.

Rather than draw grand conclusions from these disconnections I'll say only that they are possible and each one makes further disconnecting a tantalizing proposition. Being thoughtful turns out to be almost as addictive as social media. Who knew? 

Luddite Living

It wouldn't surprise me if I come off as a Luddite. I've written about unplugging and disconnecting. In teaching, my primary technologies are pen, paper, the printed book. I'm listening to The Pat Metheny Group's "Song For Bilbao" on my turntable. And if you were to catch me writing by hand, I would be doing it with a fountain pen in a notebook. Even on the computer, I'm using a minimalist editor -- Writer from bighugelabs.com so I'm not distracted by bells and whistles. In the last week I've read articles about dumb gadgets being better than smart ones, getting news from actual newspapers, and paying attention to the moment. In school, I tell students I'm intrigued by their willingness to be slaves to phones. On my desk is the paper planner with which I replaced Google Calendar. 

Yeah, you could say I'm a Luddite so long as we agree they weren't anti-technology or afraid of it. Rather, they didn't like how technology was being used to disenfranchise and hurt common workers. If we're talking in those terms, then you bet your ass I'm a Luddite. 

I've taken the last week off Facebook. I wonder if Facebook went away, would I lose or gain? A bit of both, but not in equal measure. This week I have realized I spend about an hour a day on that site. Ew. It would be okay if it made me happy, but that's mostly not the case. 

What does Facebook provide me? A conduit but for what? When I was a kid, Mom called the television The Idiot Box. A box full of idiots and watched by idiots. Sure, that's harsh, but Mom is an all or nothing kind of girl, and I tend that way as well. Facebook isn't completely worthless. It just feels that way.

My plan isn't to swear off Facebook, my phone, or the computer. I just want to ask questions. Are these things making my life better? Am I using them well? Am I being used by them? No, no, and yes, but only because I let them. 

Months ago I turned off notifications on my phone. Just now I deleted Gmail from my startup tabs on the Chromebook. I'm learning to turn my phone off part of each day. All of this is a response to my dependence (addiction?) to the technologies. 

The only casualty of these maneuvers has been posting to this blog. I've written very little on the computer to post. I'm glad to be back at it, especially in this stripped down editor. (Get a Writer account and customize it. I use a dark blue, Open Sans font on a light yellow page in full screen.)

I want to keep asking questions. I'll check Facebook again soon but maybe with a timer counting down five minutes. I want is a better life and the questions are turning, slowly, into a system to achieve it. 

And I Love Her

Brad Mehldau Trio is on the turntable (their album Blues And Ballads, not the whole band; they'd break the whole shelf) playing "And I Love Her." And I love it. 

I've poured a short glass of scotch with one ice cube. Whiskey is the only thing I enjoy slowly. Mostly I gulp and bolt things. I want to slow down but just don't. Whiskey is slow and that's what I like best about it.

Stephanie is in the shower and when she comes out can use the sink. For five days it has been plugged beyond anything I know to clear it. Anything but the plumber who took things apart, snaked a muskrat out of the pipe (might have been hair, but I saw eyes), and the water she flows again. 

The snow has melted enough that the roads are dry though riddled with potholes and bumps. We got fourteen inches Friday into Saturday, but it's all cleared and piled along the sides of driveways and roads. A clear driveway makes me happy and reminds me of Dad. 

The dog snores when she sleeps on her blanket three feet away and is intriguing accompaniment for Mehldau's jazz trio. And I love her too, though this wheezing and snoring is odd. She needs whiskey. 

Both daughters are at school tonight. One is rehearsing the musical until past my bedtime. (I've been known to be in bed by 7:30 saying I'm going to read but falling asleep before eight. I really am 87 years old and get the hell off my lawn you damn kids.) The other is at mock trial until a slightly different time than the other. Having two children means driving to and from the high school more times than I can count, though I can't count very high. Back in my day, we used to walk...

Having railed against Amazon for weeks, I of course ordered a printer cartridge from them. They had a ridiculously low price and we were snowed in pretty well when I ordered. It was so convenient! So convenient, I ordered the wrong one and will spend eight bucks to send it back. Meanwhile, Best Buy had the right one, two miles away, and get this: they match Amazon's price if I ask nicely. Had I bought the wrong one at Best Buy, I could have returned it for free. But Amazon is convenient. Place your best on when I might learn my lesson. 

I figured out that I have about 2,000 days on the job before I can retire. Stephanie says that's no way to think about it (as she took away sharps and poisons). Take it one day at a time, she said. She didn't sing the One Day At A Time theme song, which surprised and saddened me, but the message was clear. 

So I took just today, this one day at a time, and you know what? It totally sucked. What does she know? 

Brad Mehldau is playing "My Valentine" now and it might just be a perfect song the way he plays it.

I have this record, a turntable, an amplifier, and a great pair of speakers. I'm sipping good scotch. My lovely wife will come down soon. Our printer works as does most of our plumbing. The dog snores but is every way love itself. 

There's every chance I may learn not to panic every time I feel sad. I may come to believe again in possibilities for my future. I suppose almost anything is possible.

At least when Brad Mehldau is playing and Stephanie is walking down the stairs to be with me. 

The Limits Of Technology

Several nights ago I ran up against the limits of technology. I couldn't remember a song. I was in bed with a snatch of lyric stuck in my head, unable to sleep until I figured out what song it was and hear it in my head. All I had was "Crisis of faith and crisis in the Congo" on repeat. I did not have the tune, the notes, the singer,or the rest of the lyrics, and it was driving me mad. Despite the late hour, I pushed the covers back to go get my phone and figure things out. 

I charge my phone in the kitchen so I can sleep instead of looking at the damn thing.  Technology in the bedroom, beyond clock, book, pen and paper, is a mistake. I went down to the phone and typed in the lyric, expecting my answer in a Google micro-second. I got nothing. I typed different combinations, but I had the lyric wrong. Google was no use. 

I returned to bed frustrated but also happy. I was on my own. Just me and my memory. I knew the song was in there and knew I had heard it dozens of times. I played the snippet over and over in my head. It was a male singer with a weird voice. I felt like the next line was, "yeah, we heard that before" but it didn't fit the rhythm. 

My wife asked if I had figured it out. I told her, I was still working on it. She said, thanks for putting it on an endless loop in my head. Marriage is all about giving. We turned out the lights and she rolled over. 

I kept at it. It wasn't the Congo. Crisis of faith, sure, but no crisis in the Congo. I played the line in my head without words hoping to hear where the crisis was. It remained mysterious, but the next line resolved into "Yeah, we'd heard all that before." It didn't come right away but began as a vague feeling of syllables, the sure memory that it began with _Yeah_ and ended with _before_. I tumbled that until the line came clear. 

Then I heard the voice. It was nasally, almost whiny. Later, I'd apologize in my mind to the singer, but he's dead and unlikely to take offense. 

"Crisis of faith and crisis in the hmm-hm, yeah we've heard all that before," I sang in my head, and though I couldn't put the next line together, the band and singer came to me along with the tune. It was as if I had plugged an extension cord from an outlet to the faraway, dark place where the memory lay. The light came on and music played:

“Crisis of faith and crisis in the Kremlin
And yeah we’d heard all of that before
It’s wintertime, the house is solitude with options
And loosening the grip on a fake cold war.”

— "Fireworks" by Tragically Hip (with apologies for my description of Gord Downie's voice) 

Had it been Google's answer, I'd have nodded, felt comforted, and gone to sleep like I had taken a pain reliever. Instead, I put it together slowly, piece by piece, with the possibility I might not figure it out. There's something so much more rewarding about that. 

I'm not about to ditch my phone or Google, but it's good to remember the wonder of depending on my brain while I still have it to use.