There IS Life…
… outside the internet. I swear to you, it’s true. I know for a lot of people this seems hard to imagine, but trust me: it’s there.
I’m sort of half joking, but sort of being very serious. I had this realization a bit ago, when I realized just how much of my life I was missing by being tethered to my pc.
Addiction - XKCD
See, it happened like this:
I’d just revamped Bonne Vie with a new URL and a fun layout, and had just gotten Deco Modiste off the ground, when I was contacted about a project. Yay! The project took off, I met a lot of great people, we started getting busy and before I knew it, we’d hit fun, hectic, summer-mode. You know that feeling – as soon as summer hits, there are a million things to do. It started with Euro-trips and fashion shows, photography projects and friends visiting from out of town, weekend trips to here and there and all the while, I was trying to maintain Bonne Vie, Deco Modiste and the project site.
I gave a big chunk of my time to exciting endeavours, and would come home only to slowly fall asleep in my armchair, or to spend an entire evening (dinner included) trying to hammer out posts, edit photos and maintain my sites. The internet world began making demands – “we need you on this conference” … “we need you to fix this post, and re-size and color correct these photos”. With a 40h/week work schedule and a burgeoning design house on the side I was starting to burn out. I kept looking into laptops, with the idea that I’d buy one so that I could do work stuff on the go.
I was running two sites, working on my pet project, working with Deco Modiste, working with Sinner Saint, looking at ways to get out of an uninteresting desk job, and trying to attend to all our visitors, friends and family who exist in reality. Thank fates I had conflicting schedules when it came to school – I decided to take a quarter off. Around that time, Mister sat me down and asked how I was doing – in part, he thought that some of my projects were becoming too demanding. Mostly, though, he missed me.
We had a few arguments, but the true catalyst came when one of my side projects said “You are not able to devote enough quality time to us – you have too much other cool stuff to do.” I was shocked, horrified and totally irritated that someone would make such a choice for me. Commence lifestyle examination!
Just as this happened, friends started to come to town for summertime vacations, and I began to spend (besides some on and off time at work) very little time in front of the pc. Instead, we camped and went to music festivals. I still took a ton of photos and still posted on Bonne Vie, but with all the amazing fun that was happening all around, it was easier to blog about awesome adventures. I zoomed around in my little car with the sunroof open, listening to tunes and talking about fun ideas. I went to concerts. I went on real life shopping sprees. I read books. I painted neglected fingernails and planted a garden.
Most important: I was happy. I realized how much I missed getting out and doing fun things and writing about it later – more so than trying to keep up with too many projects at once. I realized how much more fulfilling it was to sit out on my deck in the shade of my big umbrella and read mags (and taking notes for posts) than to sit in front of a computer screen and try to read and hack away at an article, while being so distracted by the influx of information. It was great to go out and meet the people I talk (and write) to, in person, than to sit in front of my monitor tweeting to them all night. They’re so much more fun in real life.
I forgot all my sadness about the demise of my authorship at that little side project I started, and started to remember what Bonne Vie was about. It’s not how many posts you can get out in a week – screw all those people who tell you you MUST POST every day. It’s about living the life, and living to tell the story.
110/365: 1991-1992 by Hyperbolic Pants Explosion
It’s true, the internet is an amazing communicative tool, but it’s no substitute for the human to human interaction you find in real life. In focusing on real life and in letting myself be thrust away from the giant mass of internet, and spending a little time in the real world, I broke the habit of worrying about how many emails I’d have waiting (I’ll get to them) or how many posts I have to write (they’ll be written when they need to). I started enjoying more of the good *real* life I have and worrying less about the good (yet intangible) *net* life I’ve built.
The people I’ve met in the past few crazy months are all amazing people and I look forward to forging great friendships with them – but I believe it’s better to put my stock into a real and tangible friendship instead of a few passing words on the net. There is life outside the internet and it’s out there, happening right now, with vast opportunities and ideas for you to be part of. Turn off your monitor, stand up, stretch and find out what amazing adventures lay in store when you just unplug.
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