A day without internet is like a day without a storm: peaceful and calm.
The funny thing about technology and anxiety is that for me they feed into one another; and I don’t know how you are with technology or the world wide web but I never knew how much I use it, and have come to rely on it in my day to day life. I’m one of those people who walks around feeling like I don’t really rely that heavily on it; I pride myself of thinking that I’m a “take it or leave it” sort of gal. Like I’m pretty good at telling myself after a certain amount of time responding to emails I won’t anymore. I give myself a cut off for email corresponding, and I do the same with my social media use. I was pretty sure I had a handle on it, until today.
I arrived at my Cali house last night knowing that the Wifi wasn’t working. Mikaela had discovered it a few weeks ago. She and some girlfriends tried to reboot it while they were here hanging out enjoying the air conditioning during the LA heatwave that is every October. They got air, but couldn’t stick around because they weren’t able to do their assignments for class, because, no wifi. Knowing that trying to reboot it didn’t fix it I knew that I would have to have a tech come in. No big deal, even though the tech couldn’t come until early evening. I just thought cool, I’ll handle other things in my life that don’t involve having to access the worldwide web. But even that didn’t prove as easy to execute as I had imagined it to; why? Well because everything I wanted to do, or attempted to handle was being done on the other person’s part via email, which I couldn’t access, because I didn’t have Wifi. Now some of you might say; “just use your cell service.” That would be awesome, IF I had strong enough cell service up in the Santa Monica mountains, which I do not. So here I sat, going through my incredibly long list of things to handle (by memory, cuz no email access to said list)the good old fashion way. By making phone calls. I literally spent hours, like probably five on the phone today. When I finally got off my last call at 6:15pm I thought to myself; “shit, how did people use to do it? How did we use to manage our lives on the phone all day long??” I thought sending emails and texts was time consuming, but I’ll tell you something that I learned today. It actually doesn’t take more time, it seems to me that it is a way to save yourself time during the day because when I reply to something via email I can address just the topic at hand. I only need to answer the question, whereas when one gets on the phone with another human being, or maybe this is just me, there is no just get to the point of the call; there is all sorts of extraneous conversation that takes place before and after the primary reason for the phone call. So much more time to plan, schedule, manage one’s life by getting on the phone. I felt old fashioned, but exhausted after a day of conversations.
The other thing that I noticed about not being on the other end of technology for almost twenty four hours is that in today’s world, not being able to see or read the news from one night to the next, causes one to miss so much shit. I missed SO MUCH SHIT in one day. Justin Bieber and Selena are back together?!? What??? Since when??? Kathy Griffin went toe to toe with some epic video calling out TMZ and her ex-boss Andy Cohen??? To which I say GO GIRL, since I’ve now seen the entire video I applaud her for her commitment to defending her honour and reputation. Us women need to do that more vigorously, and without shame or guilt. And speaking of applauding, I applaud Anthony Rapp for speaking up after all these years about his sexual assault at the hands of a much older Kevin Spacey. I’ve read so many mixed comments, and I’ve read a few articles on the matter, all from different slants, and it will forever and always astound me how people will come for the person who was assaulted. So many asking questions on the articles comment sections: “why now after all these years?” “Why is this guy now trying to take down a celebrated, award winning actor?”
Excuse me? Where do these people come from? Like do any of them think for five minutes that living with that has been easy? He was a 14 year old kid, who was touched in a sexual way by a man; thirty years ago. Think about that. Thirty years ago our kids weren’t being taught in school, or had television shows with gay characters in them, nor did they know anybody at school with two moms. Being gay wasn’t something that a boy of 14 would have known about, not like they would today. So who was he going to tell? And who would have believed him even if had? Probably nobody. And the most important part of any victim speaking out at any time is that most often it takes knowing they’re not alone to finally feel brave enough to share their stories. They get strength in numbers. So, maybe Anthony finally feels strong enough to speak out about his experience because of all the other actors coming forward about their own horrifying experiences at the hands of elders in positions of power and authority in an industry where they’re trying to make a career happen. And maybe, people who have never been in this position of, sexual attack victim, should refrain from suggesting that the victim is trying to; “slander or take down” a successful person out of spite. Maybe, just maybe they’re just trying to get not only closure but healing by finally letting their stories be told.
As I recount all that I learned, in the few short hours of being back online, it really has me thinking that maybe it is a much better way to live. Under a rock, with no access to internet, because even though I was exhausted from all my human interactions today, I at least wasn’t left feeling hopeless at the state of the world. I had quite a lovely day in my bubble of not knowing until I got reconnected. Might be something I want to start implementing in my day to day life…hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.
