time spent offline

I am on the Internet.

In fact, I write this blog post and publish it online to share with whoever may read it because of the Internet. My work, an absolute dream come true, also requires me to be on the Internet; mostly to send communication emails, save files to shared drives, and search up important information to get my job done. The Internet is also where I look up grocery flyers and recipes, book tickets for shows and museums, and schedule my doctor’s appointments- all from the comfort of my couch. The Internet gets me places too; far and wide- from home to foreign places and back home again. In fact, the Internet is an absolute dream come true. Forgive my naivety, but how did anyone ever live without the Internet?

Then, there is the “internet”— lower case, low quality junk. Noise masquerading as information. Swipes pretending to be infatuation. Passive misery making its rounds in the name of social awareness, and disconnect fronting for social connection. And I am no longer on the “internet.” I am no longer interested in who said what to whom and who didn’t, all the while life passes by nonchalantly; time is indifferent to your spending habits. It is important, for our own sanity, since being online is as necessary to modern living as the toilet we piss in, we make the distinction between time spent on the Internet and time spent on the “internet,” versus non-internet things. All online time is not created equal. It would be foolish, and I was foolish once, to think one must completely unplug and not be online at all for it to be counted for time spent offline: Wait, what??? Allow me.

I am rarely online, if ever.

That is, I’m rarely on the “internet.” The internet is social media. It’s reddit. It’s the news, and all the digital junk that entertain, enrage and pacify us. On rare occasions, like last week down bad with a terrible cold, I find myself scrounging the internet for mindless entertainment. With a dumb smartphone and the Self-Control app aggressively blocking most of the “internet” on my laptop, it’s almost impossible to find such escape but I manage. There is always digital junk to be discovered if you give it your best try: The Useless Web. Yes I was that sick and desperate.

Every morning starts with the “internet” too; although I have accomplished a tech-free bedroom, first thing I do when I get up out of bed is open my laptop and check my email to see if there are any important message awaiting my attention. There is rarely any email worth my barely-awake brain power; this, too, is the “internet”— addiction masquerading as just-in-case-someone-important-emailed-me-in-the-past-12-hours-and-requires-my-immediate-attention. I’m a weak, fallible, mortal human after all. But then, I make coffee, open Chapter Four of Sisters of the Yams and take careful notes in-between paragraphs. I get lost in my thoughts. When I’ve read about ten pages, I open my $2 notebook and journal a minimum of two pages; lately it’s all reflections on my healing and growth journey that has been exceptional. “It takes me about two hours,” and he is flabbergasted- “Babe… two hours???” I know, I know, but it’s two hours of non-internet things; of learning and unlearning. My friend cracks me up often: “If I had better things to do, I would be doing it!” I don’t.

It’s a Friday.

After my long, luxuriously wordy me-before-the-world morning routine, I get ready for the day ahead. While I get ready, there is no “internet” and barely any Internet except glancing at my phone periodically to check the time, or the weather, and maybe a text from my lover. And once I leave my place, there won’t be any “internet” either. But there will be plenty opportunities to use the Internet. The number one reason, and maybe one out of the only two reasons, I cannot give up my smartphone is GPS navigation. Although I am plenty familiar with our public transportation system and I would manage just fine without portable GPS, I prefer the convenience and ease of knowing I can always get to wherever I need to go, whenever, with simple and clear navigational instructions from my Maps app. The second reason is music on my commute. What would even an alternative to this now?

I arrive at my doctor’s appointment with plenty time to spare. I made the appointment earlier that week on the Internet; click, type, click— easy, peasy. To pass the time until it’s time to see the doctor, I sit outside and soak up the sunshine. I learn again: Inspiration is everywhere if you pay attention and without the “internet” to distract and pacify me, I feel wide awake. After the appointment, I commute to my workout class at noon. I booked the class on the Internet, as I do all my workout classes. Every week, usually on Sundays, I log on to my account and hit the register button five times to schedule all my classes for the week ahead. Besides the physical and mental benefits of exercise, it’s my favourite non-internet thing to do.

After my class, I opt to run a bunch of errands so I have an excuse to enjoy the summer heat, soak up more sunshine and enjoy the noise of the city. The Internet dutifully loads up the directions for how to get there and everywhere. There’s no “internet” this whole time; I don’t have access to it. Once evening hits, it’s time for our usual Friday meetup. I open up my Maps app and look up the directions to the park we are meeting at this week. It’s our first time meeting there instead of our usual bar: When summer, do summer things. (Winter, we must do winter things) “It’s so green,” I remark and I feel like I have never seen trees, been at a park, before in my life. We stay there until midnight; five hours spent drinking, talking, laughing. Besides a few glances at my phone to check for notifications, my phone remains locked and untouched.

This is a non-typical Friday. I usually work and spend a good chunk of my Fridays both on the Internet and a bit of “internet.” But my Saturdays and Sundays are regularly filled to the brim with non-internet things, mostly time spent doing things with people whose company I enjoy, and the Internet provides directions and information to things and places. Besides that, when I get on the Internet on the weekends and weekday evenings, it’s mostly to write time spent offline, look up grocery flyers and recipes to plan for the week ahead, book my workout classes, and sometimes I read interesting articles too. Some weekday evenings, after a day spent working a job I love, a good workout session and homemade dinner paired with an impromptu dance session, I load the Kanopy website for a movie to relax to; I count Kanopy as the Internet. It is so far removed from the “internet” noise that it doesn’t feel like it. My boyfriend watches VHS/DVDs(?????????????????????) but I’m not there yet.

Evidently, all online time is not created equal.

The Internet, in all its glory, makes my day-to-day life convenient, efficient, and run smoother. It is one of the greatest tool civilization has birthed. The Internet is magic. The “internet,” on the other hand, is a colossal waste of time. I wasted so much of my youth on the “internet” because somebody lied and said, and I believed, I needed to be on the “internet.” So I don’t miss out, they said. Miss out on what exactly? I missed out on so much real life trapped inside the “internet”— tweet, tweet, tweet. But I’m glad I went looking for an alternative to what the world deemed a necessity for living now, the “internet.”

As I enter the last bit of my 20s this month, I have been intensively reflecting on my time spent offline journey thus far. Mary Choi’s quote sums it up perfectly: It doesn’t get any less scary. All that happens is that you have less life left. It helps if you do your falling early, and it really helps if you do your reaching early. Sure, I have less life left and boy did I reach and did I tumble, but I have learned a thing or two. Most importantly, I wasn’t addicted to my phone or the “internet,” but rather I was addicted to escaping myself. Maybe second important is that there is a difference between the Internet and the “internet,” and that I can use the Internet as a tool to fill up my life up to the brim with non-internet things. So much so that I have little time left to be on the “internet.” And life is so much better—juicier, lovelier, more fun, delightful, pleasant, merrier, satisfying beyond my wildest dreams— this way.