cleanse

I have long been sceptical of cleanses. I know, they’re all the rage today, and maybe they have some value when it comes to keeping the metals and pesticides and radioactive waves out of our bodies. But I like food too much, and the idea of subsisting on some bizarre concoction such as lemon juice and cayenne pepper for an entire week every couple of months just doesn’t tempt me.

But I’m currently on a cleanse of a different sort. It’s called an Internet Cleanse, and a columnist in the paper I write for wrote about it recently. The idea is to go off the internet, cold turkey, for one week. Just one week, and then when you come back, hopefully, you monitor yourself (hold yourself back) so that you don’t resume the same obsessive habits.

Maybe you don’t have obsessive habits when it comes to internet use. Good for you. I, on the other hand, can’t walk by my computer (which is situated conveniently in the middle of the house) without quickly checking Facebook to see if anyone’s updated (don’t want to miss out on knowing what my old high school chums, who I have absolutely nothing to do with now, think about the weather!). That will often lead, mysteriously, to me searching furtively for some suddenly important piece of information such as how to say “cheese” in American Sign Language, or the age of Reinhard Heydrich when he became known as the “Butcher of Prague.” Before I know it, an hour has elapsed and nothing productive has been done.

Lucky for me, I have a son that doesn’t mind playing on his own for half an hour or so at a time, as long as I make sure he’s not pulling up vents and filling them with blocks or emptying the CD cases of their CDs.

But in addition to freeing up time and increasing productivity, the Internet Cleanse is supposed to enhance creativity – something I’ve been feeling really deprived of lately. The idea, I guess, is to get your mind out of the virtual, screen world and into its own space.

Funnily enough, this is why I stopped watching TV, some 10 years ago or so. It was just such a drain on life, living, imagination, interaction … and now that space has been filled with my computer with just the same result.

Going off it, the 3.5 days I’ve been doing it so far, has felt really good, surprisingly. Of course, every time I see my computer, which is every 10 minutes or so throughout the day, the impulse is strong to “just see what’s going on.” But resisting it is starting to feel liberating. I can, it turns out, survive not knowing about Torbjorn’s traffic follies (although they’re always entertaining when I do know!)

To be honest, I haven’t been as extreme as my initial description of the Internet Cleanse – cold turkey, turn the computer off. After all, I do need it for my work. So I’m still checking emails (but only three times a day) and I do allow myself five minutes before bed to sneak onto Facebook and see what’s new (surprisingly, little changes from day to day). But no getting trapped in the link-following madness, no pouring over blogs, no regular checks of news pages (once a day is enough). I’m only allowing myself this post because most of it is done in Microsoft Word, not by internet. And I wanted to express – to contribute and not just absorb, another of my internet woes. Anyway, posting it will only take only seconds, and then I’m off again, until Sunday, when my week is up.

I’ll check for your comments then.