Offline & Unplugged
At some point somewhere in mid-winter it came to me to declare myself offline and unplugged to the handful of the humans that share some daily life with me. I can’t say why or how I even got to the thought — but it was there rolling and rattling around in my headspace and heart in the quiet moments of the morning walk; catching me unawares in the midst of a particularly good bit of a book, while baking; sometimes so loud that I had to sit down and let it shout out every screeching decibel into my head — feel it pound my heart until racing, forcing myself to remember to breathe out.
This rising panic and dread about myself, the state of the world and the holding pattern that life had become was becoming an altogether more frequent occurrence — despite my rigorous discipline of not having email on my phone, keeping work calls on a limited timer and strict email check-in times — I was feeling overwhelmed and a load of other things that I cannot even begin to describe.
Typically the panic would emerge and manifest in the midst of a regular moment — I’d taken to just continuing with whatever task is at hand — thankfully there’s almost always music playing in the background — and so in the last instance, as I push through the panic; slowly I start to hear Summer of Four Seasons creep into my buzzing, screeching headspace. The rhythm, the violin solo, the cadence drift in and gently lift me away into its dizzying heights and dramatic falls — lost in this hazy, shaking, breathless, shimmering dance. It’s a relief and a balm and so somewhere in all that stuff going on — the thought of going offline and unplugging the WiFi was conceived and nurtured through the next couple of days.
The offline day loomed large and eventually having made mention of my imminent plans to a slightly wider work circle than I had initially anticipated; I clicked the WiFi off, turned off data on the phone and unplugged the router. I exhaled, made some tea and went off into the garden to plant some nasturtiums. So far so good.
The next morning, with Bearski happily loaded up, we headed off to the morning walk. Feelings of palpable excitement mixed with nothing short of dread carrying me along for the beachside sunrise salutation. The Bear suffers no such mixed feelings and while I was patently distracted by the voices in my head, he lost no time in using the opportunity to dive into the nearest fisherman’s bait box for his morning fish-oil dose. To see the Bear swiftly and decisively devour sardine bait without breaking his stride is to know the face of pure mischievousness and not a little smug satisfaction at a super easy snack.
The blissful offline and unplugged experiment lasted a whole 72 hours before my phone rang with the offer to join a work pow-wow in Jozi. I gladly accepted, given the leanness of my lockdown income. But that’s a blog from last week, so let’s get back to this idea of going offline — into ‘airplane’ mode as a young relative called it.
Despite the work schedule requiring some time online, I maintained the offline option for my personal social feeds and the short story is that I did not miss any of them very much. In fact, I hardly missed any of the platforms at all. I still got my news via real-life human sources; the advantage of this is that you get the news and the analysis delivered at the same time — so you can much more easily absorb it (or usually discard it).
I took pictures without thinking about posting them, went for a (slow) morning jog without any tracking app on the phone, listened to new music without having to share it and a whole host of regular daily life events without giving due consideration to how I would share these events — expect manybe to recount them in an actual conversation with another human. I made a load more actual phone calls and found myself speaking for longer and more meaningfully with family, friends and work colleagues.
The obvious question is: did going offline and unplugging while still immersed in daily life and work in the Highveld mining village work for me? In short, a resounding yes — it worked for me mostly because I desperately needed it to — the alternative being a head-doctor visit and possible prescription meds for the anxiety attacks (and probably a DSM classifiable diagnosis to boot) — neither of which hold the slightest appeal to me.
The system and process of reviewing human anxiety is fraught with a deeply inhumane philosophy and practice. The unseemly connection with big pharma is just the money shot in the entire sordid psychological and psychiatric care business model and I’d trade that kind of problem centric fault finding for even just 72 hours of being offline and unplugged.
So when you’re done reading this, switch it all off and go breathe deeply of yourself and your state of being right now — remember, despite any changes to Lockdown levels, we’re still living through the early stages of a global pandemic and a looming economic shitstorm.
Also let me drop a deep, heartfelt thank you to you, my dearest readers — even if it is mostly friends and family who do this out of love — your support and regular feedback is balm on this journey to manifest a whole part of myself that has been shaded in darkness for years.
With the deepest gratitude.
More love and good energy.
