I am surrounded by distractions. Every day, from morning to night, my life involves a computer, a “smart” device, or some other gizmo that is destined to make my life easier. At work, this is inevitable – I work with and on computers as a way to make a living – i cannot avoid that, at least not right now. However, in the morning, the first thing I do is check news and technology updates via various services on my iPhone. When I get home in the evenings, instead of doing something – anything – else, I almost immediately begin streaming movies or TV shows over Netflix “because it’s something to do,” and simply because it’s there. I have music playing or a TV show running whenever I am doing almost anything else – including writing the first part of this document. When even that is not enough, I have my iPhone on standby with an app store at my beck and call, waiting to deliver any one of a thousand games to entertain me, even for a little while, for just 99 cents.
My iPhone goes everywhere with me. It’s my connection to the world of the internet, the millions of people, places, news sources, cool new things, and every other little distraction in my life. XKCD, Wikipedia (that one’s a doozy), failblog, Facebook and twitter – which i update sporadically, admittedly, but they are massively distracting nonetheless – the ability to know what’s going on in friends’ lives in 140 character snippets is surprisingly attractive.
I lose touch. The distractions are a growing cancer on my soul – pulling my focus to the world and it’s interactions, and away from where it should be – on God. Now that’s not to say that I am against the world, and the things it has to offer – I believe that much is good, so long as it is taken in moderation, but the old adage stands true – “too much of a good thing…” Let’s just say that with the more toys we have, the more likely we are to worship them, and the knowledge, entertainment, distraction, or whatever other aspect that they bring to our lives instead of our Father.
That said, I’m going to try an experiment. Something that I have never done before, something that isn’t a new idea, at all, but new to me. I’m going to see how much I am missing due to these parasites stealing my attention from where it belongs. I am going to sever myself from my interface with the world, at least when I am not at work. Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, February the 17th, 2010 at 0900hrs, and ending Wednesday, February the 24th, 2010 at 0900hrs I will no longer be involving myself with communications devices and methods outside of my normal work hours – and will be using said devices only for work during those same hours.
I will be disabling email from reaching my phone – at all – for the next week, and will be using parental controls to block access to the web and the apps on my phone. My phone will be, for the first time in 2 years, just a phone (albeit with a very expensive dataplan). Twitteriffic will be disabled, and Facebook will be unavailable. If anyone needs to reach me after 6PM, it would be in your best interest to call me, as I will not be checking mails. My xBox will be dismantled, the harddrive stored in a separate location, so that i cannot get my instant fix of Netflix. I do have a computer set up at home with the basics – Cyberduck, Textwrangler, and Safari, so that, in the event an emergency does crop up I will be able to do something about it.
I will have my camera and my voice recorder, and I will still have a phone with which I could attempt to become a lot more social again. I won’t be getting “news” from people’s status updates, and if i want to know what’s going on with them, I’m going to have to make an effort.
So, here’s to a week of living distraction free, with the time to focus on the things that truly matter in life. I pray that it leads me in the right direction, and that I realize what all is going on around me, that I have allowed to pass me by for so long, and that I am properly putting myself into a position to become stronger in my walk with Christ.
And if anyone wants to grab a beer, hang out, or just talk, I’m definitely up for it =]
~/A\V/
Postscript: There will be one final twitter/FB post announcing this to everyone, so that they know that I’m not actively ignoring them, around 0830hrs tomorrow morning.
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