People often ask me how I can stand it as an extrovert – being housebound and unable to see friends very much. One answer is that I just have to – so that’s how I stand it.
But another answer is ‘the Internet’. I started blogging when my brain energy was just good enough to be able to write once a week or so, and since then my cognitive energy has improved, though my mobility hasn’t. So I write, and I chat. People are so quick to condemn social media as ‘anti-social’ and destroying ‘real’ friendships and interactions, and I appreciate that it can be a danger. For me, though, it has been a lifeline, and I spend much of my day idly ‘chatting’, or keeping up to date in people’s lives. Reading the bite-sized bits and pieces is not as demanding on me as reading a book. There are so many with M.E. who can’t look at screens at all; I am profoundly grateful for the friendships I have been introduced to through Twitter and blogging.
All of which is to say how much I am dreading next week.
For my online writing course, Story 101 with Elora Nicole, we have to spend a week without social media or the Internet. Because I have relatively little ‘real life’ contact with friends, this is the equivalent of going on a silent retreat for a week, and I am HYPERVENTILATING at the thought of it. What if I miss something important? What if… (Actually that’s probably the only valid ‘what if’ – the other what ifs just start sounding a bit hysterical: ‘what if I get bored?’)
It’s only a week*. And I need to work on the book some more, keep my new-found writerly angsty diva-style moments to a minimum (hopefully – but no guarantees), breathe in. If I’m honest, I am afraid of silence, stillness; even in my housebound and often isolated state. I distract myself from the silence with the noise of others’ lives and opinions. And sometimes I wonder if in letting so much noise in, I’m keeping God out, as well as the silence.
So this is where I’m at. It’s a funny sort of in-between place. Sometimes bravery looks like getting up and doing the routine of your life again today, just as you did yesterday. Sometimes bravery looks like saying no, changing things. For me, this week, bravery means embracing silence, and seeing what it brings.
*um… The week starts tomorrow. After I’ve posted my monthly ‘what I’m into’ for April. That’s allowed, right? I’m sure it is.
Joining with Lisa-Jo Baker for Five-minute-Friday. This was my best five minutes on ‘brave’.
Over to you:
- How would you feel about a week without any Internet?
- What does ‘brave’ look like for you, at the moment?
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I know I can do a week without internet. One of the distructive things for me when I play ‘give me value’ with social media, desperately flicking from one to another looking for a like, a comment, a message, just something to show I have some value to someone or I can say something that is of value. Sometimes I think is is an excuse for me not to stop and sit with Jesus to listen. On the other hand I know how valuable I have found my online friends, particularly those in the Ravelry christians with depression group, there to encourage when I’m low, who are awake in another part of the world when I can’t sleep, who know what it feels like AND know Jesus, and are able to send up a prayer for me…but also don’t know me.
Brave for me would be sharing my struggles with people who I meet every day in order to be an encouragement and not just my online friends and those closest to me.
Wow – thank you for this.
I know what you mean about the destructive ‘give me value’ game – it can be so unhelpful to go on social media when feeling even a little bit low or vulnerable.
And I also get what you mean about the bravery of being honest with those who we meet everyday. I wonder if it’s because on forums/online communities there is that specific ‘permission’ to share of our struggles, whereas in real life, we don’t often feel that. (Which is just too absurd for words. And sad.)
This has given me lots to think about. Thank you.
A few months ago a problem with my phoneline left me without internet for three weeks with no prior warning. Being housebound, I was climbing the walls (metaphorically of course) wondering what I was missing, how many urgent emails would be overflowing my inbox and worrying that friends would panic about my safety if they couldn’t get hold of me. When I finally made it back on-line I was chastened to realise I’d missed very little of any importance and very few people had even noticed my absence. Although the internet is often my only link to the outside world it made me reconsider just how much of the time I spend on-line has actual value and how many of the people I speak to online are genuine friends and not just a shallow distraction. It has definately changed the way I use the internet since then.
This is really sad. 🙁
There is so much noise on the Internet that I think it takes a while to realise that someone isn’t speaking (unless they trumpet it loudly, like I have done.) but even so, that’s still a bit sad. When you invest so much in relating to people on the Internet and are so dependent on it, it’s disappointing when people don’t reciprocate. I feel your pain. Xx
It is so hard to be disconnected not matter the media or the reason. Praying for you as you brave through this time.
Thanks for your prayers – I really needed them as my week turned out to be one of illness!
I’ll miss you, but have a good week. Oh, an your British outlets are so cute! 🙂
Confession: this is just a pic I got from flickr – I thought the outlets must be American! We call them plug sockets (do you call them that too?) But we have different kinds of sockets – here they are http://www.flickr.com/photos/inky/2342689645/
So I guess they must be European? Or Asian maybe??
I miss you! Would love to hear how things are going with you, when you have a minute xx