Love in Dark Settings

( Fourth Priority Resolutions: Disorganized Things That I'm Not Tripping Over )
( New resolutions that don't fall into the above categories )

Looking at the four parts of this list, my feeling (other than a hysterical desire to scream, "Just burn it all down! Get it out of my life!") is that 90% of my recent problems with mental and physical clutter have arisen because of the Internet: excessive Internet usage has prevented me from having time to put the rest of my life in order. Now that I'm making some progress on the Internet front, perhaps I'll be able to accomplish more next year in digging myself out of the quagmire I'm currently trapped in.

As it is, I'm reasonably pleased with how this year went. I made progress in tackling some very serious problems, and I found that it wasn't as hard as I thought to get rid of belongings, which caused me to decide to get rid of more items than I'd originally planned. Most importantly, I achieved my #1 goal, which was to get my Internet usage under control - a goal that, for over a decade, I'd been struggling tooth-and-nail to achieve.

That I succeeded is mainly due to my determination to find a solution to that particular problem within a year of my mother's death; I wanted that to be my gift to her, because she hated how the Internet took me away from my family and friends. It's no coincidence that I finally achieved my solution on the very week of the anniversary of her death. Thank you, Mother.

Don't worry, I haven't fallen off the Internet addiction wagon. I decided at the beginning of last month to move this week's Internet day to Thursday, because Labor Day weekend is a big festival weekend in my hometown.

( Second Priority Resolutions: Health )

I actually didn't set goals last fall, because . . . well, you'll see why. It was sort of like having someone shove the United States's multi-trillion-dollar debt in one's face, saying, "Here! Figure out what to do!" It took me months after my mother's death to even work out where the exact problems lay in my life, much less start to come up with solutions.

In this series of four posts, I'll be listing the physical and mental objects in my life that I gradually realized needed to be organized, the goals I set for myself over the past year, whether I met them, and my goals for next year.

( First Priority Resolutions: Internet, Writing, Etc. )

WEEK OF JULY 12
--Days online: 6.
--Hours online: 14.

WEEK OF JULY 19
--Days online: 6.
--Hours online: 16.

WEEK OF JULY 26
--Days online: 1.
--Hours online: 8.

WEEK OF AUGUST 2
--Days online: 1.
--Hours online: 6.

WEEK OF AUGUST 9
--Days online: 1.
--Hours online: 5.5.

WEEK OF AUGUST 16
--Days online: 1.
--Hours online: 3.

It's official. I'm in remission from my Internet addiction.

(*Bells ringing.* *Fireworks exploding.* *Twenty-one gun salute.*)

I still have one more major challenge ahead of me: this winter will be difficult, since I plan to go online less and will have fewer offline activities with which to distract myself (since I'll be homebound and won't be able to read standard-sized print, the way I can in the summer). But in celebration of what I've accomplished so far, here is a roughly chronological list of the steps that I took in my battle against my Internet addiction.

Success took me twelve years.

( My multi-step battle against Internet addiction )

As graphically presented by pageaddict, a wonderful Firefox add-on.

( Image under the cut )

Since December 2007 (after five years of considering taking this path), I've been endeavoring to living a life centered on simplicity. My primary model is the lives of Christian hermits, monks, and nuns (particularly the Desert Fathers and Mothers), but I also take inspiration from other people who have lived in simplicity.

My accounts of my life of simplicity are found in my Daily Life entries. They may contain references to spirituality and ethics. Sections of my Daily Life entry that relate to simplicity are labelled "Simplicity" after the relevant dates within each post.

"This simplification [of a solitary's life] is a matter of making decisions; this way but not that way. But the decisions have a certain inevitability about them. Certain sacrifices have to be undertaken and choices made. It is rather like pruning a tree; in order that the tree may bear good fruit the branches must be pruned. But it is not just the dead and decaying wood that has to go but also good burgeoning shoots, full of possibilities. It is a matter of deciding the priorities in one's life."

--Eve Baker: Paths in Solitude.

Topics in this post: Simplicity of surroundings; "brother" monks versus "choir" monks; learning from other people's beliefs while avoiding cafeteria-style spirituality; Internet addiction and my sleep schedule; "Into Great Silence" (film about Carthusian monks); joining my schedule with my apprentice's; caring for my mother; "sabbath" schedule.

( Read more... )

"The sacrifices others see [the monk] making are in reality no different from the athlete's recognition that certain elements detract from one's performance."

--Frank Bianco: Voices of Silence: Lives of the Trappists Today.

Topics in this post: Internet addiction, support for solitaries, stability, meditation/contemplation, liturgical hours, work, novelties, lectio divina and Vitae Patrum, Great Books and ethics, rigid daily schedules, seasonal schedules, social interactions, overwork and tiredness, the Psalms and Thomas Coverdale, Anglican chant, arguments against solitude, grace through trial, asceticism.

( Read more... )

"The life of the solitary is not an easy life, since there are no prescriptions for it and each day must be faced anew. The signs which say 'keep in lane' and 'when red light shows wait here' are of little relevance to one who is called to strike across country, equipped with a rather inadequate map and a compass one has not yet learnt to trust. From time to time the solitary seeks affirmation, reassurance that the path along which he or she is being drawn is genuine and not an illusion. . . .

"Sometimes no guide appears, and one is given no such reassurance. This is a test of faithfulness, of perseverance in the face of doubt and darkness. The early pioneers of the desert of course had no guides. They just went out into the desert, the place of desolation, and got on with it."

--Eve Baker: Paths in Solitude.

Topics in this post: cowls and habits and other clothes, (not) finding a community, lectio, the Desert Fathers (especially St. Anthony), stability, family obligations, intemperate speech, schedule.

( Read more... )

"Voluntary poverty can be the easiest step of all. . . . Gone is the struggle about this or that - all of it is forbidden. You own nothing. How much easier, how much simpler than our world of endless decisions between acquiring and not acquiring."

--Richard J. Foster: Freedom of Simplicity.

Topics in this post: Internet addiction, acquisitiveness, Carthusian monks, sacrifice, tidying my surroundings, schedules, skimming quotas, solitaries, rhythm versus novelty, library browsing quotas, travel quotas, Zen Buddhism and the arts, reading quotas, using simplicity as an excuse not to be simple.

( Read more... )

"There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less."

--G. K. Chesterton.

Topics in this post: Internet addiction, accumulating possessions, support networks for simplicity, my Muse's effect on my schedule, mania's effect of my schedule, simplicity readings.

( Read more... )

"I said that these blindness games will be valuable to you as a writer. But their main value to you can be in another way. For writing doesn't depend as much on the images you see with your eyes, or the sounds you hear with your ears, as it does on your 'inner eye,' your 'inner ear,' the understandings you have inside you that you glean from all your senses, including your heart. The more you learn about your own inners, the deeper understanding you will have about yourself and about everybody. You'll be seeing with your heart, and then if you write it down, fine. The writing will be the richer. But the writing's not the most important thing in the world. The understanding is."

--Jacqueline Jackson: Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail: A Book About Writing among Other Things.

Topics in this post: simplicity, Internet addiction, braille, blindness, self-publishing printed books, self-publishing e-books, authorship, scanning books, Christmas.

( Read more... )