Yesterday I broke down and bought a paper paper. (Real newspapers are allowed on this Digital Declutter.) I got The Sunday New York Times. It was an irritating and filthy experience.
And I’m not even referring to the content.
I forgot how newspapers make your hands black, and how you can’t adjust the font or the brightness.
And then there’s that whole origami business of folding the damn thing just so you can read it without a full-arm wingspan.
And most stories get continued on later pages, which by the time you finally get to them, you’ve forgotten the whole gist of the thing.
As I finished each section, I dropped it on the floor beside the couch, and then had to to step over the whole mess, gather it all up, and bring it to the recycling pile after the reading experience.
And don’t even get me started on the issue of the dead trees.
I’m really looking forward to getting back to the attractive user interface of online news reading again. I miss the ability to swipe and click.
The other thing I’m missing is the snark of my Twitter feed. I follow some very smart and witty people on Twitter. They make me laugh and they make me cringe. But I find them very comforting.
I’ve also figured out that once this fast is over, I’m going to do all my news reading and Twitter checking between 2 and 3 PM.
This is my My Big Takeaway from all this. I discovered that it’s not the THAT, it’s the WHEN.
After a day of reading, writing, thinking, planning and being a creative ninja, only then will I allow myself to check the media. And I’ll keep to an hour or less. After that I’ll walk the dog, take a shower, and go and teach my yoga class.
The activity of teaching yoga puts a strong arm-bar on any thoughts about political nonsense. There’s no place for that stuff in the practice room. The yoga, both the doing and the teaching of it, is a powerful palate cleansing activity for the mind, the body, and the spirit.
After class, I’ll go home, eat a little dinner, and relax with my honey before bed.
This is the perfect solution. I can max out my creativity between 10 and 2, catch up on the bizzaro world between 2 and 3, and then reestablish my equanimity early enough so that it doesn’t disrupt my sleep.
Bam.
Trouble is, there’s 2 more weeks to this project and I’m extremely itchy to try out my new “Strategy Of Sanity.” I really don’t think there will be any more major epiphanies coming down the pike, I really don’t.
But since I’ve committed to a month, I’ll stick with it. A big part of me thinks once you get the message, though, it’s okay to hang up the phone.
Inspiration Location 