Unquiet Desperation

Coming off of a month of almost no podcasts, RSS feeds, IM, and Twitter gives you an interesting perspective. This online world of messaging is loud. It’s like walking out of a quiet cabin and onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Everyone is shouting for your attention. Twitter, popping up every other second.

Forget it. I’m done with that. It messes with my new-found serenity. The detox was far better for me than I ever could have hoped.

Within twenty-four hours of my detox, I felt like a weight has been lifted. It was no longer my job to keep in touch with everyone. I had a respite. This, I realize, is entirely my problem, but there is something powerful in giving yourself permission to drop off the map for a while. To allow for the fact that, yes, you’re going to miss some witty banter and clever repartee. It felt wonderful.

Within three days of shutting down all my messaging apps I noticed that my headaches went away. Completely. I think it’s probably because my eyes were focused for longer periods on one thing rather than flitting from window to window as messages came in real time.

Being available is highly overrated.

Within seven days of not reading three hundred blogs and listening to seventy podcasts, the words began to return to me. I started to write. Just sentences at first. Just an idea or two, a snippet of dialogue, then more. Not, the great novel is not in the works, but these essays are a start. I’ve rediscovering a voice I thought I had lost.

Within fifteen days of going without the writer in my head would not leave me alone. My inner voice will not let me sleep until I got down what it needed to say. Yes, in a weirdly psychotic way, I consider this progress.

Now, thirty days later after I began, I realize that I prefer this peace to the way I was living before. While the quality of my writing has not improved much, the content has gone from trivial things to deeper thoughts, from mere conversation to contemplation. I prefer this state of being, this place from which I can engage the world by own action, rather than by a Pavlovian reaction every time the email or twitter notification sounds.

Did I miss my friends, my tribe? Of course I did. I look forward to talking to them again. But it was interesting…when something important happened, I found out about it via email, or phone call. Anything that I missed was usually trivial. The important stuff will find you.

I think that’s the most important thing my info detox taught me. The important stuff will find you. Stepping away is good for the soul.