48hr. TechnoFast

In the Beginning...

Like most fasts, this journey started right before going to bed. Hands trembling, I lay my new iPhone 6+ down on the padded surface of my nightstand. Typically it's in my hands, entertaining my mind with eBooks, timelines, random videos, and sometime educational junk. When I finally put the phone down, my mind rolls with thoughts for over an hour before the exhaustion takes it toll and my mind force shuts down. 

Last night, it took at least 2 hours for my mind to wind down. I blame it on not having my 1-3 hour fix of blue light screen. I woke up periodically to "check the time" but really, I just wanted to make sure my phone was still there. It's hard to remember that your are fasting when you are just going through the sub-conscious movements. 

12 hours down! 36 more to go.... 

The morning is strange. My typical routine consists of telling my phone to shut up multiple times, taking the phone and checking the social medias, just in case my friends from the middle east posted something, because they are up during the day, which is night for us. Nothing really changes but it's a nice review from the night before. Perhaps its just more a reassurance that the world isn't change so fast that from one day to the next, there is some semblance of consistency. While eating my breakfast I usually turn on a TED Talk for some daily inspiration and then make way to school. It seems to be a routine that works well, I least I feel content with it, for now.

Rambling... Back to what I was saying, this morning was strange. I grabbed a book. Leather bound, thin silky like pages with gold edges. Each page has two columns of text in a modified WTC Goudy font. I remember looking that up from viz comm, because I wanted to make my text look like it was the word of God! Now I can come close.

Wow, it’s kind of hard to stay focused. I tried getting through a chapter, but I would come up to a word, or a phrase and I would grab “nothing” thinking that my phone would be there. All I wanted to do was look something up that had come up in my reading, or more often than not random thoughts pop into my head and I want to look them up. Maybe I’m just becoming more visual.

Survivor – Day 1

Thank goodness for nature. I went out and took lots of pictures; it was a good distraction from not having my phone. Phantom vibration syndrome, yeah one of those random things that I looked up, is when you feel a buzz on your leg where your phone typically rests in your pocket, the buzz feels like you’re getting a vibration notification of a text or a call, and the reality is, you’re just crazy. Well I’m crazy! I felt my leg buzz all day. I even caught myself just checking my pocket in a made sweat fearing that my phone had fell on the path. It was in the car, just in a case of an emergency.

I remember what life was like when I had to remember 7 digits combinations and I would tell you the last four digits of almost any one of my friends home phones. I thought, do I know my wife’s number, Yes! Do I know my moms number, NO. Whose number do I know? I could only think of my wife’s number. Sad day! I sure hope that there isn’t an EMP, like, ever!

24 hrs. down – 24 to go!

Some time I think they need to put me a padded room and restrict my body movements to standing walking, and moving my head back and fourth. OK It’s not that bad. But I do feel like I’m going somewhat insane. My life in southern Utah has been developed with the use of technology. Trying to change that for 48 hours is futile.

32 hrs. – Breaking Point

Truth be told, I broke my fast. I made it nearly 33 hours. I woke up at 2 in the morning. I couldn’t sleep and my mind was conceiving of a solution to world hunger, not really but at that time my half conscious thoughts gave me the same emotional importance. It was too important to not research and write about. So I grabbed my phone and instant relief. I started researching the social media implications in the elections and started to write in my notes app the thoughts that were flooding my mind.

It wasn’t long before I realized that I was checking all the social media platforms. Somewhere in the back of my mind was a pestering faint thought of, you’re breaking your fast, you’re breaking your fast… It wasn’t strong enough to stop me from reading, writing, and browsing.

48 hours – Lessons Learned

Even though the fast was broken 16 hours earlier, I tried to abstain through out the day. I watched a TED talk, learned about poetry in Argentina and how it’s helping incarcerated individuals fix their life and make something of them selves. I reviewed what I had wrote the night before and found out that it was not as important as solving world hunger. Surprise!

In general I enjoyed spending more time with my wife and baby girl. I took more pictures and I’m excited to post them for the world to see. I learned that even though I’ve lived nearly 2/3rds of my life with out this technology, it quickly become a standard of life. While I remember being happy before technology, I couldn’t remember what I did with out it, at least to the extent of doing it again. I had to reinvent the wheel. It is strange how much my life revolves around a small pocket device. In less than a year that I upgraded to a smart phone, my life become consumed with it as a way of life.

Realizing this, I would like to try and focus on things that will keep me connected more to reality, family, friends, and nature.