The past decade or two has been called a number of
different names – the information age, the digital age, the computer age – and has
been a time of immense growth in computer technology and the internet, among
other things. With the new technology many new opportunities, moral and ethical
questions, scientific and medical possibilities, temptations, and much more
have entered the everyday lives of the modern populace. Do the benefits of
technology outweigh the negative influences it has exerted on culture and
common life? That’s a debate that I don’t care to have. However, I am planning
to do a sort of experiment on the subject.
On January 1st of 2014 I am going to drop off
the face of the earth. Not literally, of course, but in the sense of
disappearing from the digital world of internet and computers. For personal,
spiritual, and perhaps even scientific reasons, I am taking a sabbatical from
the social media world of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. I am turning my back
on my numerous email inboxes (except for my work email, for hopefully obvious
reasons) and even my prestigious online blog (ha!). I am refusing to keep up-to-date
on global news via online networks and websites.
To put it bluntly, I am fasting from the internet for 90
days.
The majority of the world won’t know and certainly won’t
care that I am going “offline” until April 1st (no fooling), but for
the tiny minority that will care and will notice, I thought it best to offer a
little advanced warning and a sort of explanation. No, I haven’t un-friended you
on Facebook. No, I haven’t been eaten by an African lion. The world will go on
without me. I'm pretty certain of that.
Outside of my co-workers, fellow Botswana residents, and the
tourists/passengers on my flights, the only contact I plan to have with “the
outside world” will be old fashioned snail mail sent to my company address in Gaborone.
If you want that address, feel free to contact my family or to look it up on
the World Wide Web. Plan on 2-4 weeks of transit time for any letters you may
mail. The donkey carts that deliver mail over here are pretty slow. Not really,
but the time it takes for me to get mail will depend on the flight schedule of
our air ambulance planes, so it is unpredictable.
In case of emergency, contact my company or my family. Or
you could just call 911.
Enjoy the internet for the next 90 days! It should be
faster without me clogging up the bandwidth. If you would continue to pray for
me during this time of internet silence, I would most definitely appreciate it.
As for me, I’ll be enjoying life as it used to be with no internet to distract,
to communicate, or to enlighten. I am actually hoping it will be the best of
times, the age of wisdom, the epoch of belief, the season of light, and the
spring of hope for me rather than the opposite. And just perhaps, during the sabbatical
I will be able to say with my own personal meaning, “It is a far, far better
thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I [have] than I have ever known.” Oh yes, and I do plan to read some Charles Dickens with my additional free time. It will be great.
Jeff - I think this will be awesome for you. You may never want to "come back"! I very much look forward to the day when I can do this. Having a technology company makes this impractical for me, but I actually long for the day when I don't have to be a slave to technology. We will miss your posts, but I envy you! - Uncle Louis
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