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Letter #2: Yellow Pages, Losing Memory, and Doing Your Own Thing

On Monday we were greeted to another few letters from Christina.  Three actually, bringing our total to 5.  Completely out of order!  First January 3rd arrived and then next January 1st.  After that?  January 2nd... it is really the strangest thing!


It would be nice if they arrived one at a time, a little note for each day, rather than in big bundles of two or three letters at once.  But I can't complain, it has been so lovely to get real mail!  Even better is actually feeling like I know what's happening in Christina's life.  It is so hectic around here with me starting back at work and little boys to take care of that even picking up the phone can wait weeks before it finally happens.

You may be wondering if I got these on Monday why you had to wait until Wednesday to read them.  Well, ironically enough, the computer they have been scanned on is having some major problems CONNECTING TO THE INTERNET!!  Agh, so funny, yet so annoying all at once.  I think we have everything sorted now.  Oh, and did I mention I am now a working mama??  Which means by the end of the day I really want to go to bed, but in fact I have marking and planning to do.  So when you add that to the need to fix an internet problem it leads to a two day wait time.  Sorry to all the Luddite fans out there!

Still no snow on January 2nd, but now on January 18th we have plenty! 

Electromagnetic Radiation... Something to Fear?

Letter #3

There is something to be said for the weight of paper in your hand when you read a letter.  A real letter that was penned with ink faraway and made a journey across a nation to arrive in my mailbox (apparently a long one in this case... Christina wrote this one on January 3rd and it arrived in Vancouver on January 11th!)  I love how this message was so short yet so very sweet, a reminder of a grandmothers love and how powerful taking time to pick up the phone can be.  

Letter #1: The first letters have arrived!

This is what greeted me in my mailbox this morning...

Isn't it great?  Julien was THRILLED to see real mail in our box, with real letters, to me!  He was a little dissapointed that he did not find his own name, spelled J-U-L-I-E-N on it, but was happy nonetheless.  There is something to be said for the weight of paper in your hand when you read a letter.  A real letter that was penned with ink faraway and made a journey across a nation to arrive in my mailbox (apparently a long one in this case... Christina wrote this one on January 3rd and it arrived in Vancouver on January 11th!)  I love how this message was so short yet so very sweet, a reminder of a grandmothers love and how powerful taking time to pick up the phone can be.  And here, a second letter, which was actually the first but the mailman didn't know and stuck them haphazardly in our box to be read in any order they so happened to be pulled out!

Tomorrow I will post the beautiful card and envelope that housed this little letter... tonight my eyes are falling shut too and my file has ceased to load.  

In this letter we see what my biggest issue with going offline would be... LOSING CRAIGSLIST!!  In all seriousness this would be a major concern in my life.  I am the self-appointed Queen of Craigslist.

Anyways, here I am, exhausted from the first days of my new teaching contract, sick with one of a million high school viruses, and yet wanting so deeply to sit and take a moment to reflect on this internet fast.  I have been thinking about it constantly... as I walk the boys to the park, cook dinner, read Facebook for the fiftieth time that day... just in case I missed something!  (I mean honestly, you never know what people might post as their profiles in the last five minutes... right?)  Where have we come from and where are we going as a technological people?  I think about it as it relates to education.  My fears of this next generation of students who cannot seem to focus long enough to read a textbook or write their answers in full sentences on a piece of loose leaf paper.  They beg to listen to their iPods while they read during Silent Reading and look at me like I stepped out of a historical fiction novel when I tell them, "No.  It is SILENT reading... which means you need to read in silence." 

What would it mean to give up the internet for one month?  Would I feel completely disconnected, unplugged, alone in my reality of concrete daily life?  Or would it be liberating... I will not be seeing first hand what it would mean, but I am looking forward to reading snippets of Christina's journey long the way.

Check in again tomorrow - we have only received two of eight sent letters!

Why Fast the Internet?

One night in late September I stumbled awake with an idea: give up the internet for a year. While the thought came in the flicker of night, it had been gestating for more than a year, beginning with the research and writing of “In with the Old,” an article for the New York-based journal The Curator.

In it I wrote:

There’s no question that technology has overrun our lives. Over the past century, the world has welcomed technological ‘progress’ with arms wide open and we’re living with the clicking, dinging, anxiety-inducing deluge of it.

But a creative backlash is underway, helping human beings cope with the avalanche of data that passes in front of most of us every day through the use of computers and cell phones.

Slow food, the back-to-the-land movement, and groups like letter writing clubs are being formed by a new subculture: the 21st century luddite, wielding fountain pen and notebook, and some checking e-mail from the public library a mere hour per week.

Rebecca Dolen and Brandy Fedoruk [owners of a computer-free paper store in Vancouver, called Regional Assembly of Text] think this movement is more than a blip on the technological continuum.

“We started the letter writing club right off the bat because we wanted to have an ongoing community event. There have been a few hardcore regulars but 80% are new people each month. We started with five to ten people and now regularly have 20 to 30.”

There’s a universal sense that something must be done to rope the nodes in. But what? We can’t all pack our bags and head for the hills, or can we?

I’ve been growing increasingly uncomfortable with the role the internet plays in my day-to-day life and the impact it is having on our society at large.

Earlier this year I watched a CBC documentary called: “Are we digital dummies?” In it there is a scene of a priest conducting a blessing service for smart phones. Here is a man, dressed in holy vestments, calling on the God of the universe to bless a Blackberry. I had a visceral -- absolute bodily repulsion -- to the scene unfolding before my eyes.

While the benefits of the internet are numerous: Skype and photo sharing, for example, it is mixed with an ever-dominating persistence for our attention, and it is this I find unsettling. The centrality of internet technology in our daily lives makes me squeamish and I feel I need to figure out why.

I have suspicions. I think the internet makes me lazy, as a thinker, a writer, and a friend. I think the internet allows me to emotionally disengage, enabling me to pass the time with ever-ready filler: mundane, contextless information via newsfeeds, Facebook and Google Reader.

The truth is, I am both bored and obsessed with the web.

It is my hope to complete higher education in the area of media studies, particularly looking at new media’s impact on our understanding of citizenship. During this season with young children (I have a 2-year old and a 4-month-old,) conducting this experiment would allow me to gather first-hand research while staying at home with my children.

I anticipate this fast as an opportunity to enliven my real relationships and filter out the extra. I know it will be an enormous adjustment in my day-to-day life, but I also expect it will be a life-giving exercise. I know it will be a huge change for my family, in particular not seeing pictures and blog posts appearing online. Instead, I hope to pick up the phone more often, send letters, visit in person whenever possible.

Spiritually, it is my sincere hope that this fast opens my ears to God’s voice and my eyes wide to the world around me, while the hum of my online life falls quiet.

I have decided to begin with a one month fast. I have spent the last month gathering up important phone numbers, getting maps, and dusting off my dictionary. As of midnight the data will be turned off my iPhone. No more emails, no more Facebook newsfeed, no more Google maps.

How will I chronicle the journey? Each day of January I will write and mail a letter to my dear old friend Marisa Ducklow in Vancouver who will scan the pages and post them with her thoughts. I can't wait to see what unfolds.

I welcome all of your thoughts (and thank those that already shared on facebook.)

_________

That's it! I'm officially offline. Happy New Year, Everyone. Thank you for joining Marisa and I on this journey.