In a roundabout way, this topic is linked with the last one. It's still Sunday night as I type this, and I hope I have less to say because the last post (about drinking) took me an hour or more. But let me try to crank this out quickly. [For whatever it's worth, I didn't finish it until Monday night. Oh well.]
When I took possession of my apartment, almost a year ago by now, I made appointments to turn on the gas and the electricity. Water and trash are included in the rent. I decided not to install a phone line because I've got a cell phone, and why exactly do I need two phones? (Wife has a land line as well as her cell phone, but I've never once claimed that Wife's spending makes any logical sense.) I don't own a television, so I didn't bother to connect cable. And I did not set up Internet service. To this day I haven't.
This irritates the boys no end, when they come to stay with me. I often have to go to work during the day, leaving them to entertain themselves until I can get away and come home. For Son 2 this usually means reading. But Son 1 owns a laptop (Son 2 doesn't), so his idea of entertainment is to surf the Web. Bad news dude – Dad doesn't have an Internet connection. Can't do that. So he plays downloaded games instead; if both of them are here at the same time, they may entertain each other or go for a walk around town or something. (At least once last year Son 1 went out to the movies.) But I never fail to hear from them that "At least Mom has an Internet connection – unlike some people!" It has almost become a running joke. I think they chalk it up to my being stingy. (Wife has long told anyone who will sit still to listen how stingy I am. For my part I think she spends at delusional levels. Maybe we're both right.)
But really, why don't I have an Internet connection in my apartment?
I've thought about it. In some ways it would be convenient: for example, I could post these blog entries when I write them instead of having to queue them for later. I could check movie times without having to get a newspaper. Maybe I'd finally get my photos from Peru posted online where the family can see them – or at any rate I could do a lot of other things without having to pack up my computer and walk to the public library where the wifi is free. I could check my e-mail from the comfort of my own apartment ....
But wait. Check my e-mail? Do I want to be able to do that all the time? If I can then pretty soon I'm expected to; pretty soon I have to. If I'm plugged in all the time, then I'll have to be plugged in all the time. Work will be able to find me. Friends and family will be able to find me. Human contact is great, of course; I'm not knocking it. But there's a reason we don't live at the office. And there's a reason it's nice to have "a place of your own" ... even if it's not much, or even if (like me) you don't want it to be much because you don't want to have to take care of it. Sometimes you just gotta get away, and not having Internet at home is a great excuse.
There's more. I know how seductive the Intnernet can be. More times than I could count have I gone online to look up one little fact, then seen an interesting link and followed it up, ... and by the time I come to myself three or four hours have passed. My eyes are a little glazed, my mind is a little dazed, my soul is not a bit refreshed ... and yet somehow a large chunk of my day has slipped through my fingers never to return. Thich Nhat Hanh is right to refer to the Internet under the aspect of alcohol or a drug: it induces the same forgetfulness, it nudges with the same compulsiveness, and it gives nothing back in return. It buys your life and pays with ashes. You'd think that with this opinion I'd never use the Internet except for a defininte purpose, that I'd be as vigilant about Internet usage as I try to be about alcohol, ... that I could make it not be a problem. But I'm not so sure. At the very least, I don't trust myself to do this. (You notice I haven't given up drinking either.) So instead I just make it difficult to access. Yes, I can connect to the Internet over the weekend, but to do it I have to drive into the office, or walk to the Library, or at least find a Starbucks somewhere. I have to take conscious, deliberate steps. And that slows me down. It makes it less likely that I will piss away my weekend and not even get the delicious feeling of laziness in return.
This means I'm depriving myself of one of the drugs that could distract me from anxiety, but I find myself of two minds about this. One side says, "Good. If you're anxious then deal with the anxiety rather than covering it up by surfing the Web." Interestingly the other side agrees about the prescription (no Internet) but for the opposite reason: it says, "Internet browsing may distract you from your anxiety; but unlike booze or food or sex, it does not alleviate it." When I'm done, I am just as anxious as I was before ... maybe a little more so. This is what I mean by saying that I'm not refreshed. It's kind of like eating cardboard – it keeps the jaws busy, but when I stop to pay attention I realize there's no flavor and it doesn't really make me feel any better. If I'm going to feel the low-level chronic anxiety anyway, I'd rather live in the real world while I'm doing it ... surrounded by real, tangible objects with real colors and textures, and feeling real honest-to-God boredom rather than some cheap ersatz imitation of interest.
Of course not everybody feels this way. But if you've ever read Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
And I suppose I should add that this is a general comment about the medium. If some of you start writing again, I promise to make an exception for you. I'll still have to do it from the Library on weekends, though.
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