Mon 9 Apr 2007
This year, for the season of Lent, I gave up using computers.
That is, of course, not quite accurate since I use a computer 37.5 hours a week at work, and short of quitting my job or taking an extended leave of absence, avoiding computers altogether could be construed as a fireable offence.
What I mean, rather, is that I powered down my laptop computer before Ash Wednesday began, and it remained tucked away in its case until Easter Sunday. My evenings and weekends were mouse-, keyboard-, and monitor-free. Not owning a television, this also meant watching few movies, and TV infrequently.
“What are you going to do with your time?” was the most common question I was asked, followed in subsequent weeks by, “Are you surviving?” Unsurprisingly (at least to me), my answers were consistently “plenty” and “of course,” respectively.
I am not a computer gamer. Nor would I consider myself particularly unimaginative or uncreative, so replacing the Internet with the Winnipeg Public Library wasn’t too great a stretch. I read half a dozen books, ranging from physics lectures (on quantum electrodynamics) to classics of literature (Madame Bovary) to interesting memoirs (Jonathan Franzen’s The Discomfort Zone). I listened to opera (Puccini and Verdi), rehearsed Bach’s Mass in B Minor for our Easter weekend performance with the WSO, worked on my bicycle, and wrote poetry and music. Occasions where I longed to boot up my computer were rare.
Am I boasting? Absolutely. Not with the intent to convice you that I am cultured, or a paragon of self-control, but rather to remind myself how fulfilling it has been to invest my time with more purposeful intent. (Okay, maybe a little bit of the former as well).
The laptop is back out of its case now, but it no longer has a home on my desk. I am hoping that by making the use of my computer deliberately inconvenient, I will persist in some of the good habits I have formed in the last month and a half.
