What!? No Internet!?

“Housing is basic, cell phone reception is limited, and it does not have internet.”

What!?  No internet!

For three months, I’ve lived with no wifi at home and limited phone service.  There is slow McDonald’s wifi 45 minutes away.  And… Life has been amazing without regular, constant acess to the internet.

One of the few times I went into town for internet, it took two hours to upload two blog posts.  Not a good use of time.

Without internet, there is so much time.  Time for the world outside my door.  Time for the people I interact with face to face.

There were initial frustrations, of course.  I ran out of podcast episodes.   I failed to download my library book on tape in time—after I finally got it after three months of waiting on hold, so now I’ll have to wait another round.  I miss being able to keep up with photos from my friend’s hiking adventures. 

But I’ve found huge benefits of the no internet life.  Amazing things happen to your brain.  The clarity of mind and peacefulness remind me of the mental state that happens when going backpacking.  I notice more around me.  I can dive into reading book after book, and that can open up whole new ways of thinking.  Every sunrise and sunset is a whole new event to be enjoyed. It feels like I get to live more.  That moments are overflowing with intentionality and appreciation. 

I realize how I used to reach for my phone as a way to distract myself from momentary discomfort.  Maybe I’d be trying to write an article, and I’d get stuck.  Instead of just sitting with it, I impulsively open up instagram to escape.

I’ve enjoyed slow ways to get information.  When I have questions that I would normally google answers for, instead I ask the people around me, or search for answers in books.  Slower, but when I actually have to work for the answers, I end up learning more.

Not as fast as google.  But you'll find a fascinating world here.

News comes, but not via the usual channels.  It’s direct observations and word of mouth here.  We take out the ruler and measure how much snow fell in the last 24 hours.  The peregrine falcons are nesting, and we know because a visitor brought in a photo. Instead of traffic reports on the radio, we find out how the roads are by asking our coworkers or the visitors.

"It snowed last night."

It’s not entirely true that I’m completely cut off.  Via my smartphone, I can do email if I wave my phone around and wait… and wait…  If I try pressing upload for a few hours, sometimes I can get a post through to instagram, if the weather is right.  Because the internet is not instantaneous, I have to consider WHY time should be invested in whatever I’m doing.  Is it just wanting to be “liked”? Most of the time I can’t download comments and once I can actually read them, comments have lost their immediacy.  Posting becomes less about wanting responses, and more about the desire to share something with the universe that has nothing to do with any sort of return.  It makes you think about sharing in this whole other time scale.  That is the opposite of clicking and clicking and the super fast way that the wifi can make your brain not able to focus at all. 

What!? No facebook!?  Yes, I gave up it was just too slow.

Reading blog posts takes a while.  In the time they take to load, I ask, “Does reading this article help me learn something new, does it inspire me, or provoke creativity?” I have discovered that there are maybe five blogs that are worth the time to download.  It makes me wonder why I used to waste so much time reading things that didn’t make a positive impact on my life.

In reading less online, I value personal interactions more.  My mind doesn’t wander to some fb post I’ve been meaning to write.  The people in front of me are the ones that matter.  Their stories are my reality. 

As I prepare to head back to the land of internet and 4G, I wonder if I will just instantly revert back to my old ways.  I hope I can take some of what I learned back with me, and be more present and less distracted.  I want to remember to use the internet as a tool, and with thought, not as a means of distraction.