I left the house
recently for a weekend cabin-in-the-woods getaway with the express purpose of
leaving all connected devices behind.
It almost didn’t happen. I found as many excuses to bring
something with as Bilbo found for not leaving his ring behind. But in the end
my inner Gandalf convinced me that it had gotten too great a hold of me. And so
my wife and I headed north in my car that lacks even a CD player, relying on the
spotty reception from small town radio for any kind of news from the outside
world.
Not that I had planned on leaving it ALL behind me, of
course. It was my little experiment, not my wife’s, so she had her cell phone.
And the cabin had advertised it had Netflix and Amazon Prime. What with a
pandemic going on and deer season just starting, I knew our options for amusement
would be limited. We’re not the kind of people to spend a day binge-watching, but
with the woods and crowded areas both potentially lethal we had a good excuse
for such an indulgence.
When we arrived at our cabin, I went almost immediately to
the television in order to acquaint myself with someone else’s setup. It’s
never a simple task: I was faced with four remote controls, one containing 57
buttons, the second 35, the third 29, with the Roku remote mercifully having less
than a dozen. Included with them was a list of instructions written by someone
who was never going to be hired for a tech writing position.
I spent an hour of my time—in a cabin, on a lake, in the
woods—engaged in the very same stressful, tedious and yet oddly addictive
behavior from which I had attempted to flee. And in the end, for whatever
reason, I was unable to get an internet connection. Not that I didn’t try. I
engaged hopefully—earnestly—in what can only be described as technological
ritual. Even when I came to realize that the communion with the great other was
not going to take place, I religiously performed the instructions, engaged in
the holy rites which summon the spirits from their mysterious dwellings to
appear before us and work their miracles. After all, belief is vital if we are
to please the gods of technology enough to have them do our bidding.
Fortunately, my wife was there to urge me to let go, my
faithful Sam who was with me at the moment of my final temptation. And in the end,
I was able to let it go. No longer desiring to harness the awesome might of a
power beyond my reckoning, I had passed the test and remained Galad—I mean,
James.
But ridding oneself from a crutch means relearning to walk
naturally again. I found myself in moments where I would ordinarily turn to
some device for distraction, only to find there was no ring to gently caress. I
had to relearn the art of talking with another human being. I had to relearn
the art of listening to that inner voice inside of me. It was a little
unnerving because even though I had spent the better part of my life without
the internet, it all seemed so far away from me now. But over the course of a
weekend, I was able to rediscover a bit of who I was before the internet
changed me. Changed everybody.
Having seen pictures of the cabin when we chose it, I knew
it had a record player, and so had unearthed some albums from the deep recesses
of our basement. What’s more, I was pleasantly surprised to find a rather
eclectic collection of LPs at the cabin, as well. From the cabin’s library, I
sampled Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, Nat King Cole’s Rambling Rose, early RollingStones, and even Marlo Thomas and Friends (you’d have to be of a certain age to
know this one). I listened to a whole side of Paul McCartney’s Ram in order
to get to Admiral Halsey. I never would have listened to those other songs
otherwise, not in an age where the opportunity to fast-forward is always there.
It was a pleasant, relaxing experience. I think that’s what
listening to music is supposed to be like, but in the age of instant access to
everything, even listening to music has the potential to cause anxiety and impatience.
I often start a song only to get the urge to click another song after a minute
into it. I can’t speak for everyone, but I have a tendency online to move
endlessly from one item to another without ever fully appreciating anything I
hear, see, or read. This has led to a dull sense of never being satisfied, with
always wanting more, always hoping the next thing will be the one that gives me
what I want. It never does. Hence my desire to reconnect to the world I knew
before the instant non-gratification the internet provides.
We humans have a tendency to want to escape, to run away.
But too often we carry with us that which we wish to be free from. So long as
we have our cell phones with us, we can never distance ourselves from the habit
of mindless scrolling and searching. If I had had access to the internet, I know
I would not have found what I had been looking for. My inner state of being
would be no different whether I was being eternally prompted by external electronic
stimuli at home or in a cabin. But cut off from the great distracter that is
always looking for our attention, I was paradoxically able to find a bit of myself
and my past in a place that I had never been.
The fight is not over, but I have been given a brief respite
and a reminder of what life was like in the before time. The internet can change our
lives for the better if we are careful, but it can change our lives for the
worse if we are not.
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