The offline life
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- teh0
Qigong, aikido biking, running, wing chun etc its all there + so much food to try :)
If I could get up to this every morning Id be happier
- bjladams0
we were without power for a couple weeks last summer. was good. cooked out every evening. bathed in the kiddie pool. went to bed when it got dark. neighbors (and wife) thought we were crazy when the kids and i kept it up for an extra week.
myself, my business partner, and a few friends spend a week in the woods or on the river every couple months. it's needed.
- stoplying0
When you're out to eat with a group of people and everyone puts their phones on the table so they can see when they get a message. This bothers me.
I just try to make a true effort to actually listen and engage with people when I speak with them, and I hate when I'm sharing a story with someone and they suddenly look down and become engrossed in their phone.
*note to self - work on story telling ability.
- pango0
there was a power outage one night. i started playing with fire... me+fire not a good idea... almost took out my eyebrow...
i'll stick with online stuff. thx!
- jagara0
@Horp True, everything is a cyclical action/reaction from one extreme to the other.
Right now some people (myself included) may be at the end of one cycle, and feel the need or desire to move in the opposite direction, towards a more lowtech lifestyle. Until we get enough of that, and go back again.
Thanks for the reminder :)
- Horp0
" Is it just me, or is there a (weak, but noticeable) movement towards less technology being the next big all the rage trendy hip indie cool young people thing?"
Its not a replacement movement heading towards anything, its just the end of the fascination zone for this particular phenomenon. Its not the first and it will be replaced by something else. In the midst of it, it feels like its fundamental, that it will go on for ever. It feels like its the absolute future. We often fail to conceive of a real viable future-future that will exist beyond it. This is because on the whole, most people can only envisage an idea of the future that is merely a tweaked or evolved version of the present. We can imagine a future where the internet is more sophisticated than now, where smart phones are even smarter, maybe more discreet, sub-dermal maybe... but essentially we're just taking the dominant paradigm and wrapping it up in some emergent science/fiction from just on the horizon.
We can do that really well, and what that does is enforces the idea that everything now is foundational, here to stay, omnipotent and so firmly embedded into the infrastructure that it has to be here to stay, and the future will merely be built upon it as a sequence of improvements.
Thats not the case though. We are easily fascinated as a species, and the global economy largely relies on that trait, but eventually we get bored as consumers, and we discover something new and exciting as experimenters, and without being able to see the trajectory we're creating/following, we regularly engineer total shifts that have nothing to do with the past.
In the midst of CB Radio phenomenon of the 70's, it felt like CB was here to stay. It threatened the establishment of telecommunications, it threatened to bring power to ordinary people through unregulated dialogue and open expression of ideas. It was serious enough as a threat that emergency legislation was brought in, and people were arrested and imprisoned for ten years and more, simply for having the wrong kind of hardware that was deemed dangerously powerful. The danger was not that it was so powerful that it could cause airwave disruption as was claimed, the danger was that it could reach too many people, spread ideas too virulently. The fear was of revolution, not of frequency clogging.
In the late 70's early 80's CB Radio was here to stay. Everyone had one. It was the internet. It was in almost every home or car, it was liberating, a tool for some kind of social revolution.
Hands up if you have a CB Radio.
Or a maid.
Or a powdered wig.
- nb0
Every now and then I'll do a "no electricity" night. Around sunset I turn off everything in the house. I leave the fridge on to avoid spoiling food, but I don't open it. I usually have fruit and nuts and sometimes other snacks around the house, but I don't usually end up eating. It's super fun trying to find things to do around the house without any electricity at all. Read by candle light, take a bath, whatever. Most of my friends laugh at me about it, but I tried it with my girlfriend a few weeks ago and we had a great time. Almost as much fun as doing it alone.
The best part is, once it gets dark, you end up carrying a candle around with you every where you go.
- http://i.imgur.com/O…freshdude
- Sounds fun :)Iifeinvector
- I like this idea.
*steals*
Thanks.
detritus - haha, you take a bathBonSeff
- vaxorcist0
my wife and I sometimes have "analog weekends" where we simply don't check anything email/web/FB/etc from friday eve to sunday eve.... then get lots of surprised people on Monday... she even gave up FB for lent...
There's a recurring story of some NYC burned out web developers who quit and became goat farmers in Vermont....
I do know the cool mother of a cool woman... she and her hubby quit their city jobs and moved to a remote coffee plantation in Hawaii.... they have to go some distance to even use the phone or email... I know it's not all fun.. can certainly be isolated sometimes..
I remember reading about how Jack Karouac was a forest fire watcher for some time, sitting alone on a hill....
- mg330
My fiance and I have some huge dreams to open a bed and breakfast in Colorado someday. Somewhere in the woods, mountains, near snow and rivers and all the great natural things in the world. I can't imagine how kick ass it would be to run something like that, be close to the outdoors, help other people have a nice stay, cook out at night by a fire, keep a good selection of Scotch on hand and just meet new people as they come and go.
The only reason I really want to figure out how to start a business or startup of some kind is for it to be a way to make the above happen. Yeah, obviously I want to do it for the thrill of starting some kind of business and being my own boss, but it's all really just a means to an end, to have a completely different way of life someday.
- Sounds amazing. Why Colorado though?randomname
- Only 19 followers on Twitter? What's the point of having it at all?randomname
- Want to be in better nature, mountains, snowboarding, than we have in the midwest.mg33
- And Twitter? I don't post there much, but feed stuff out to it. it slowly grows, but not a goal by any means.mg33
- dbloc0
is offline life similar to second life?
- detritus0
"This vaguely reminds me of how it was cool to brag about not owning a TV some years ago".
Oh, Christ - if I hear this from some lame arse 20-something again, I'm going to vom down their throats.
Especially when you then find out they're a fucking avid fan of [insert contemporary TV shows], but they watch those on the internet, so that doesn't count.
- < pretty sure I said that when I was a mid-twentysomething, but I can whinge abut it because I'm a mid- thirtysomething nowdetritus
- -twat.. er.. thirtysomethingdetritus
- ah... I didn't have a TV from age 20 to 30 or so... whatever.... I was probably insufferable too....vaxorcist
- hahaha, exactly. Especially about the Internet thing (there were arguments at QBN about that before).Jaline
- jagara0
Heh... i'm aware of the slight irony of posting this online...
#theonlinelife
- albums0
The offline life does not start as a thread on a forum through your computer, I'll say that much. I'm sure it involves at least 1 piece of paper and a #2 pencil
- Iifeinvector0
I don't have anything against what anybody else does, but I like being as "disconnected" as I am. No iphone, facebook, TV, etc. I feel much more connected to real things now.
- define "real thing". cuz everything online is real as well. it's all happening.pango
- I guess I mean things like taking long walks, reading books, playing, meditating, etc.Iifeinvector
- But you're right, real is relative.Iifeinvector
- perhaps "real thing" is the extended information your brain gets.pango
- the feel, moisture and smell of the air. the depth and rang of colour of light, the sound of the wind and vehicle. the interaction is people in person.pango
- the interaction with people in person.pango
- jagara0
@scarabin I think those two people thought of themselves a being very trendy themselves...
@mg33 true. Acting (making a concious choice) instead of reacting is the always the way to go...
- randomname0
Reblogged.
- scarabin0
if you're gonna do it, don't half-ass it
- mg330
I get a little burned out on digital devices, but realize they're just a way of life these days, and I can't really avoid them.
It really just makes me want to camp more, be out in nature more, do some fishing, and make a point of detaching myself from phone and computer for a few days.
- scarabin0
the vocal hatred of trendiness is just another version of trendiness.
but worse i think, because they're more concerned about their appearance than the people actually enjoying the trends, who don't seem to give a fuck
- deep thoughts, by scarabin. *scribble, scribble*scarabin
- WRONGcannonball1978
- johnny_wobble0
i'm mostly on the computer only during the (work)day, unless i'm messing with my photos.