It?S been a few years thinking about I fasted on Yom Kippur. Even returned within the days once I did it every 12 months, I in no way honestly believed that I changed into obeying a command from God or that I will be punished if I didn?T. Partly, it turned into a rely of cultural identification; I fasted due to the truth I changed into a Jew, and fasting is what Jews do on Yom Kippur. But additionally, I believed that on some level, it turned into genuine for me. Good for me physically, because of the truth a 24-hour fast might lower my belly and make me much less possibly to overindulge inside the new twelve months, and correct for me spiritually, due to the fact going hungry for a day could make me more sympathetic to humans in need.
Over the years, although, I started to have doubts approximately whether or no longer my every year speedy have become truely having the favored effect. It in reality wasn?T making me sense higher bodily; on the opposite, it generally left me with a throbbing headache and an uneasy belly that didn?T want to just accept the food it wanted. And the ones discomforts, some distance from making me experience spiritually uplifted and sympathetic to all humankind, made me cranky and snappish with the human beings in my immediately area. I in the end reached the belief that fasting wasn?T doing either my body or my soul any brilliant and quit doing it.
But I in no way felt absolutely easy with my selection. Although I knew that fasting hadn?T carried out anything to make me a higher person, it nevertheless felt wrong not to perform a little factor unique on Yom Kippur ? Something that would provide the day the same weight and importance it had in the lives of my ancestors back inside the shtetl. So this 365 days, as I attended the night issuer with my dad and mom, I found myself thinking: become there some thing else I must give up on Yom Kippur, some aspect that certainly is probably physically and spiritually useful although it changed into hard? And the answer got here to me: I should bypass 24 hours with out connecting to the Internet.
I fast found out that doing this could be, in a few strategies, greater of a challenge than going with out meals. No Internet without a doubt supposed no work, seeing that my activity is quite lots certainly online these days ? A aggregate of Internet studies, composing articles in Google Docs, and connecting to coworkers through Gmail, Slack and Trello. And most of the matters I commonly do as a damage from artwork ? Checking email, answering on-line surveys, clicking on whatever interesting article has popped up on Pocket ? Would additionally be off-limits. I wouldn?T be able to clear up my each day cryptic crossword (downloaded from BestforPuzzles.Com) over breakfast, pay attention to a podcast in the shower, or examine the day?S top headlines from the New York Times. It will be a entire disruption of my habitual.
And in a way, that was the aspect. An Internet fast could pressure me to take a break from all my every day behavior, each appropriate and awful ? And within the method, step returned and get a clearer test which turned into which.
So, after a touch initial hesitation ? What approximately the emails I hadn?T answered that afternoon? What approximately different pressing messages that would are available in within the path of the day? ? I determined to present it a try. And I made a further choice: as I went via my Internet-free day, I?D file it to see simply the manner it had affected me, for accurate or awful.
Here's what happened.
***
Tuesday, 10 pm: Upon my move back domestic from offerings, my husband Brian receives onto my computer to answer, on my behalf, the one email message I revel in I can?T locate the cash for to depart dangling for the following 24 hours. He then ceremoniously disconnects the Ethernet cable from my computer to make certain that I won?T slip up and connect with the Internet without considering it. So now it?S dependable: I?M doing this.
Wednesday, 7 am: Since Brian is still going to work today, even if I’m not, the alarm wakes us at the usual time. After I take my pills and brush my teeth, I realize I’m not sure what to do with myself next. Since I can’t eat breakfast until half an hour after taking my pill, I’d normally spend the next 30 minutes checking email and printing out my morning puzzle before breakfast, but those activities are now off-limits. Instead, I pick up yesterday’s copy of the Daily Targum — a college paper I normally get only for the crossword — and actually read it.
Wednesday, 8:40 am: After Brian departs for work, I sit down and start writing this article (in TextEdit, which I can use offline). I quickly discover how much I’ve been in the habit of taking mini-breaks throughout my workday, every time I get stuck on a tricky paragraph, to check my email or play a quick game of 2048. Unable to engage in these diversions, I root around on my computer’s hard drive and unearth an old copy of Montana Solitaire, which I can play without benefit of Internet.
Wednesday, 11:10 am: I decide it’s time for a shower. Clicking on iTunes, I realize that I still have part of yesterday’s Hidden Brain podcast left over that I didn’t finish listening to, and since it’s already downloaded, I can listen to it today without breaking my Internet fast. It feels a little like cheating, but I do it. The topic of the episode is outrage: how it’s “hijacking our conversations, our communities, and our minds.” As the presenter and his guests talk about how social media, in particular, has become a constant stream of vitriol, I mentally run over all the emails that have entered in my inbox over the past few days and are probably continuing to pile up this very minute. How many of them were from one political mailing list or another, shrieking about the latest travesty in the political realm and the urgent need for MORE MONEY, NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW, to combat it? All of a sudden, I feel a lot better about not being available to receive them.
Wednesday, 12 pm: Time for lunch. As my tummy rumbles, I feel thankful that I’m skipping Internet today rather than food. Then I wonder how ironic it is that not fasting is making me more appreciative about eating.
Wednesday, 1 pm: After consuming my soup, biscuit, apple, two squares of chocolate, and a chapter or two of Ngaio Marsh’s last novel, I find myself once again at loose ends. I can’t do any work, and I can’t do most of the things I normally do for play, since they all involve going online. So instead, I sit down at my computer and start putting together a scenario for “Honey Heist,” a silly little role-playing game I’ve been meaning to run for a while. This is a task I’ve never managed to find the time to work on; during the day I was always either too busy with work or allowing the wonders of the Internet to distract me from work. Apparently a day offline was the kick in the pants I needed to get started.
Wednesday, 2:20 pm: Got so absorbed in making plans my Honey Heist, I didn?T even observe it became past my common time for my afternoon walk. It's cold and damp out, however no longer too cold as soon as I get shifting. Since I have no artwork to get lower lower back to, I sense unfastened to take my time taking walks around town, collecting fall leaves, and stopping into the shop to pick out up some snacks for this night?S activity.
Wednesday, 3:50 pm: Back from my walk. Take my time arranging my newly collected leaves of their basket and fixing myself a snack (hooray for now not fasting). Go lower returned to ?Work? At the Honey Heist.
Wednesday, 5 pm: Brian comes home from work. I ask him if he knows what time sunset is, since I can’t go back online until then (and I can’t visit Accuweather to check for myself). He checks for me and reports that sunset is at 6:27 pm, so I still have about an hour and a half to go. He also brings me a fresh copy of the Daily Targum, so I have plenty to occupy myself until then.
Wednesday, 6:forty pm: The moment of truth. Having completed dinner, I reconnect to the Internet. In the course of this at some point ? Counting from five:30 very last night time, after I left for offerings ? I even have amassed 40 emails (now not counting survey invitations) across my 3 electronic mail money owed. These encompass five artwork-related messages, six approximately dance exercising, 4 about the live performance collection, 5 regarding a pal?S request to borrow more than one board video games from us (which Brian treated for me), one approximately our weeknight gaming organisation, and shrieking political messages. The relaxation are all newsletters and exceptional minutiae that don?T definitely require my on the spot interest.
It takes an hour or greater to go through these type of accrued messages, sorting them and responding as critical. If I'd handled them as they came in over the route of the day, it'd probable have taken at the least as a great deal time, but it might have felt much less burdensome because it'd had been spread out into shorter blocks of 15 mins or a lot much less. By the time I'm finished with it all, I experience almost as tired as though I'd actually fasted all day, and extra than equipped to collapse at the couch with a few Netflix (courtesy of my prolonged-misplaced pal the Internet).
***
So, now that it is all over, what conclusions do I draw from my check?
First of all, I can say with treatment that I'm no longer truly hooked on the Internet. Going without it for an entire day wasn't terribly burdensome; in a few ways, it modified into certainly pretty incredible. Being unable to artwork or goof off in the methods I typically do left me with time unfastened to do matters I typically might now not, like making plans my Honey Heist, and extra time to spend on offline sports I experience, including analyzing and taking my afternoon stroll, without feeling responsible approximately all the time I end up taking faraway from paintings. It have become truly much less painful than going a day without meals.
That stated, I ought to admit that my life with the Internet is, at the complete, simpler than my life without it. It honestly have become awkward no longer being able to do the little things I've come to rely upon: printing out my puzzle within the morning, checking the climate record, sending a brief email message. And while I did not appear to overlook any urgent messages at some point of my 24-hour
As to whether this Internet fast was good for me, that's a tougher question to answer. On the one hand, I think my day without Internet was, on the whole, less stressful than a normal day with it. But the time I spent recovering from the "fast" was actually more stressful than usual, because I had to clear out a 24-hour backlog of messages. And I'll probably have to continue putting in extra hours over the course of the next week or so to make up for the day of work I missed.
I certainly wouldn't say that Internet fasting is something I'd want to incorporate into my life on a regular basis. But as something to do every year on Yom Kippur, it has its points. It certainly does make the day feel different from other days. It forces me to take my mind off my usual everyday concerns and focus on different things — maybe not spiritual things, exactly, but things I might never find the time for on a normal day. And at the same time, it makes me more appreciative of the many blessings of the Internet when I finally get to go back to it. (And unlike regular fasting, it doesn't make me feel too ill by the time I break my fast to be able to enjoy it.)
And if I want to feel more connected to my ancestors in the shtetl, well, after all, they lived without the Internet every day of their lives.
