No phones, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury, like Robinson Crusoe, it’s primitive as can be….
I was profusely salivating, drool flinging from my mouth with every angered snap at the computer. My eyes were enraged. All because I had been blocked.
When you’re a computer nerd who doubles as a writer for an online media company, Internet access is kinda important. Nowadays we pay for it like a commodity anyway. It’s a standby in our monthly bills. Much like our utilities, when we pay for it, we expect it to work.
If only I was so lucky. For nearly two days, I have been browser-less.
It happened at the beginning of the summer too. My computer’s network connection was broken by a Windows update, leaving me without work or a connection to the outside world beyond all the old technologies like cell phones, television, or the often feared “face-to-face” get together. Who does that anymore?
But now is an even more dire situation. Not only am I Internet-less, but without power entirely.
A little time away from the eye-bleaching screens that are pasted everywhere in my life hasn’t been all bad. I’ve returned to die-hard reading, finishing the Blackwater book and starting Free Lunch. Managed to find a newfound appreciation for batteries, specifically the rechargable lithium kind. You’d think it’d fix my sleep schedule too, maybe do a nocturnal-to-normal sleep swap. Not even a violent nature can change my one-meal-a-day diet.
In those times when the lights begin to fade, then sun starts setting, and the last chapter of the paperback in your lap begins to thin, you also get to think. In this hectic world of constant technology and talking, thinking is good. Some do it in the shower, some in the car. When you have no water and nowhere to drive, your day becomes a massive think tank. Relationships and careers are all up for reconsideration.
Does this mean any of my opinions of my lovely girlfriend or finance future change?
God no, why would I give up a life as a wealthy baron with a bombastic Asian wife? The power went out, not my senses.
haha, that note killed me. I quite enjoyed having no technology myself (until my phone was an hour away from dying), reading by candlelight and making coffee over a grill really slowed my life down. At the same time though, the prospect of cleaning my laundry in the sink and drying it on a line tends to add a bit more stress to your life. It certainly was a paradox. it gave me time to slow down, but (if it had lasted) I would have had more stuff to do.
That does suck and I understand…
The dorm I live in at Denison won’t have power back until Friday, and despite Granville closing down the town for the following few days, Denison insists we still have class when we don’t even have running water in my dorm. I get to walk to the gym to take showers and have to walk 15 minutes to get somewhere with internet… It is exciting.
Ha. Boy does it feel good to not live in Ohio right now. I don’t know what I’d do without power for that long. One time a couple years back it went out at home for just, like, a few hours, and I was going nuts.
Can you become a Baron in America? I’m pretty sure it was in the Constitution that no one’s allowed to grant titles of nobility. Oh! Are you gonna move to England and get a royal title? That’d be so cool. Baron Frederick. Lookin’ forward to it.
This has been one of the most painful times of my life. I spent most of the last two days without power, cleaning up the debris around my house.
I’m loving it! When my internet goes out, I feel completely powerless, as most of my work also revolves around the net. In addition, my recreational activities (blogging, social networking, etc) also revolve around this.