time spent offline

Some evenings, filled with terror from witnessing another day— time— passing me by nonchalantly, and unwilling to escape my emotional discomfort with Netfixes and digital pacifiers, I turn to my morning journals. Each page is carefully handwritten and stamped, and I begrudgingly flip through the pages until I stumble upon a date, a word, a sentence that catches my attention. I read. I don’t recognize the woman from these morning pages: Curious, open, understanding, accepting—Excited for the living to come, to unfold, with her childlike glee. What does she know, I wonder, what does she know in those quiet, calm, peaceful mornings spent offline that I seem to forget as the day unfolds?

In the beginning, there is silence— If you let it be so. There is also the noise, just as readily available. With a tap, a click, a scroll. This is a recent development in the history of human civilization: To wake up with the whole world in your bed— “We called her the office mattress,” she says and I chuckle at the cruelty of human imagination. Back then, I used to choose the noise too; wake up to the news, the tweets, the notifications. And they would all tell me, they’d all say first thing in the morning what was going wrong with the world, with me, with the day to come. Such noise dampens the spirit, weighs you down first thing in the morning, holds you hostage to the mattress, to the phone. You scroll more to escape the terror of waking up to all that is wrong with you, with the world, with the day to come.

There is also silence just as readily available if you let it be so: Quiet, calm, peaceful mornings spent offline. When the alarm from my dump smartphone goes off, I get out of bed— it’s just me— and I begrudgingly press the button to stop the only noise I’m willing to accept first thing in the morning. Truthfully, since bad habits die hard, I also often check email first thing in the morning, but I’m diligently working on keeping my mornings completely offline. Then, it’s silence. Some mornings, especially in the weekends, the silence stretches for three hours or more and other mornings, I only have thirty minutes to spare, but most of my mornings begin with silence: A book, a journal, water, coffee, pen. I read, I write, and sometimes I weep. The quiet, calm, peaceful morning holds ample space for the truth— my truth— to emerge undistracted: No news, no tweets, no notifications shouting out what’s wrong with the world, with me, with the day to come first thing in the morning.

And it occurs to me, it’s not that I know more in those quiet, calm, peaceful mornings spent offline, it’s that I know less. The whole world becomes the tiny corner of my apartment with a desk and a chair; a book, a journal, water, coffee, pen— Not the entire world tweeting, posting, shouting from a 5 inch screen. And it’s a big world, what’s within, when the world isn’t shouting at you left and right and the child within is allowed to come out and play. I play with words first thing in the morning— it’s what I crave. The books tell me things that shock, delight, excite me. They challenge and change me. I follow such knowing, understanding, with my journaling practice. To write is to think clearly. I have learned to be radically, agonizingly honest with myself through my daily journaling practice. It’s hard to lie to yourself so blatantly when the stories are in front of your eyes and not all jumbled up in your head. It’s a necessity to find a means, a practice, to be truthful with yourself.

And that’s all I have in the morning: A book, empty pages to write on, a pen to write with— A means to satisfy my curiosity for and obsession with truth; words are one means of knowing. I’m the happiest then; playful, light, carefree. And sometimes, when the day is getting to me— terrorizing me with its relentless noise, nonchalant passing— I think of the morning to come, for another chance to play in the quiet, calm, peaceful morning spent offline, and I feel giddy. My hand hurts from all the knowing, the truth pouring out on those pages, and the notebooks pile up with each passing year, but nobody said mornings spent offline would be easy. Nobody said it could be this wonderful.