So long for now, ambient internet
honoring my Hermit
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My February kicked off with a ‘media deprivation’ week à la Julia Cameron but updated for today’s times. This meant a whole lotta nada: no scrolling of any kind, no shows or movies, no podcasts, no news… I didn’t even listen to music.
My office is covered with piles of books, so away they went for the week! My reading consisted of catching up on email and reading my own writing. I ended up spending too much time in my inbox “not reading”.
No, I didn’t make it through the whole week of deprivation. I read two articles on day five. After two hours of embroidering, also day five, I caved and put on Gilmore Girls. The amount of relief and joy I felt rush over me felt akin to drinking cold pineapple juice in unbearable August heat.
Still, I must have cut down my media consumption by like... 97%. No idea that was possible without imploding!
My media deprivation week was profoundly boring and rapidly clarifying.
Here’s what I found out immediately:
I don’t need to know other people’s opinions about… everything. For so long, I thought I did.
I don’t need to be entertained all the time by media—I don’t want to be!
Information consumption was conflated with learning. But learning happens in so many ways, including ways I don’t even notice, and isn’t that great?
The impulse to ‘just check’ plummeted. Compulsions are sneakiest when it comes to screens: realizing my fingers opened an app or catching myself reading the news for the fourth time in an hour and wondering how I got there. Stepping out of the low-buzz of needing to check is what inspired me to stay with it.
Podcasts are a great stand-in for meaningful conversations on any given topic. In other words, I’m most drawn to conversations that reflect what’s missing in my irl relationships. Not listening to podcasts means actually attending to that relational desire… and that’s confronting.
Social media screws with my short-term memory in a disorienting way. Social media is a place where my energy feels profoundly manipulated.
Without the option of falling into random internet rabbit holes, I defaulted to working longer and later. So while media consumption plummeted, screen time didn’t. Ugh.
Now I’m not really sure how I feel about the internet in general…
At book club, we talked about our shared media/reading deprivation week around the butcher block table. It was my week to facilitate, which also meant providing snacks.
Julia Cameron says to look out for synchronicities. Well, I walked in and blinked three times when I saw that the table was set with a dozen or so lively orange tulips, bending every which way.
I know they weren’t for me, and whoever left them had no idea they just elevated my snackscape to new heights, but placing a homemade baguette between the vases of tulips felt like a kiss on the forehead from the universe.
Last July, I wanted to go no-internet, but July came and went. I’m not sure what happened… Summer, I guess? I’m naming this for two reasons:
I had the idea to cut down on internet months ago, and although I wanted it to work, the energy just wasn’t there. Over seven months later, I now have an inner, grounded resolve to this commitment. Sometimes we have an idea before its time. This doesn’t make you a failure or a flake.
No-internet sounded exhilarating in theory and excruciating in practice. Here’s where I’m at this month: So Long For Now, Ambient Internet!1 This feels right on both accounts. My lesson here: It was important for me to listen to my inner pull generously, but also to check in with my present-day self: Do you want to do this? Can we lower the stakes here to meet this need?
So here I am, halfway through my experiment in saying see ya later to ambient internet.
What do I mean when I say ambient internet? I mean both digital swimming (aka web surfing) and the internet’s general ubiquity in everyday life.
What does easing up look like?
The joy of bookmarking articles to read “later” is temporarily swapped for savoring my existing reading list. I still read a new article here and there, but very few. I’m also being selective about what newsletters in my inbox I read during this time and printing out articles to read off screen.
Avoiding any feed as best I can. Do you also find yourself looking at the Substack feed and wondering how you got there?
Dream home boards and flower laden cakes on Pinterest will be there for me in March. For now, I’m focusing on making my dream boards reality in all the little ways I can—rearranging objects, cleaning out my closet and making outfits, writing about trips I want to take, giving more attention to how I arrange food.
(almost) No random Youtube videos, just savoring my watch-later list.
When it comes to news, this is tricky… and it’s something I’m trying to sort out sooner rather than later so that staying informed doesn’t mean staying panicked. I’m subscribed to a handful of Substacks that seem to keep me in the loop better than conventional news outlets. Even though I haven’t used Instagram for my business in two years (three, maybe?), I was regularly checking to see if Bisan Owda is alive. While that’s a purposeful use of internet, I don’t even want to metaphorically step into that app because it so quickly becomes aimless and overwhelming.
Overall, continually decreasing screen time through doable, desire-led practices (shared below)
I am doing none of this perfectly.
When the discomfort feels unbearable, I’m not caught off guard.
Cutting down on ambient internet isn’t an ambitious plan; it’s creative research.
And yeah, I miss procrastinating by watching videos of ravens and beavers and donkeys and raccoons and borzois being so stinking cute.
But it’s the shortest month of the year, and I’m doing it. There’s only 10 days left in February and it’s been pretty… easy? Uneventful even? I’m letting this be imperfect and easy.
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One of the opening practices in Pivoting Toward Wholeness was to explore easing up and easing in on creative choices and thoughts to see what happens. No more all-or-nothing thinking! It creates lies.
All-or-nothing thinking gets me stuck in a thought corner of not being ready enough, feeling daunted, feeling very rebellious and when my actions veer from my intentions, I end up scrapping the whole thing and wondering why I even tried.
Every day, I’m pivoting toward wholeness—rooting deeply into intention and staying curious about moment-to-moment sensations and possibilities instead of rigidly systematizing a goal to the point that my habitual self screams with agitation and runs the other way.
As I ease out of ambient internet use for now, here’s what I’ve been easing into
𓇗 Putting my laptop in my desk drawer at night
ၴႅၴ More deep work, particularly in creative research and deepening in my craft of creative mentorship
𓇗 Writing and sending letters
ၴႅၴ Burrowing in my Obsidian vaults
𓇗 Doing my artist dates
ၴႅၴ Applying the principles and practices of Pivoting Toward Wholeness to this experiment
𓇗 Enjoying ALL THE BOOKS now that my reading deprivation week is over. Right now this looks like diving deeper into mysticism and systems thinking. I’m letting my reading practice be inconvenient and indulgent.
ၴႅၴ Mending clothes and practicing embroidering. I’m sewing rose-colored beads that have a soft chartreuse glow around them onto a cute little hat.
𓇗 Continuing to organize my life in all domains—we’re talking big simplicity energy. This ongoing commitment is wildly creative and grounding to me.
ၴႅၴ Updating my site!
𓇗 Studying French
ၴႅၴ Lingering at the table with friends and family even more. This is one of my favorite things, and so I’ve been leaning into that even more this month.
𓇗 Restructuring Regarding Dew. Big time. The word here is refinement. I’m choosing to honor my Hermit-self in this Hermit year.
To be clear: even though I feel weird about it, the internet is obviously glorious. I just don’t want it to take up so much space in my life anymore.
Right now, I want more touching bark and stringing beads and trying to make our homemade orecchiette less globular. I want more singular devotion to my vocation.
And I want the process of easing up and easing in to feel—well—ripe with ease.
Thank you for being here. If it’s grey and rainy where you are, I hope you’re hanging in there.
- Maggy
PS: On February 8th, the winter cohort of Pivoting Toward Wholeness completed. What an experience!!! After every session, I’d just stare out the window in a stupor of gratitude. Pivoting Toward Wholeness, a course on the creative potential in the everyday, returns this May. Add your name to the list to hear about it first.
I’d love to hear from you: What have you been easing up on or easing into? What do you want to ease up on/ease into? If you’re brainstorming, you might make it deliciously small and doable or so ambitious and wild, but then get curious about the micro dynamics from there (how can this be easy? how can I lower the stakes?)
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I write this dramatically because saying it reminds me of Thoroughly Modern Millie ~ Everything today is thoroughly modern // Check your personality // Everything today makes yesterday slow
I’m continuously (since PTW, lol), easing up on ambition, easing up on perfectionism, easing up on trying hard. I’ve been switching off my phone around 7pm and loving it. It makes me less inclined to open my laptop too. Also admitting that I love the idea of podcasts but in reality they just don’t work for me, and that’s ok.