The Double Slavery of the Internet… and Liberation

External shackles we will always have with us. Internal ones are the more worrisome, for they are the ones we forge ourselves. My all-too-modern soul requires a great deal of fasting from news, memes, and viral videos lest I develop eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, and a mind that merely bobs along the surface of reality without actually plunging into its depths.

Twice in the last month sweet deliverance has been given to us. Twice we have stopped in the middle of the Red Sea, turned around, and returned to Egypt. I refer, of course, to the Lord’s taking home internet away from us.

The first time was a couple weeks before our move from Minnesota. Returning home from a good-bye party with some friends in southern Minnesota, we saw as we entered the back alley large tree limbs and an energy company truck blocking the path. A large upper branch on our neighbor’s ancient cottonwood tree had succumbed to Mr. Newton’s gravity and had taken with it many of its lower mates—as well as some wires connected to poles. By the time we parked in front and got in the house the power had just come back on, but the energy company man told us that we would have to get the phone/internet people to reattach our phone and internet lines. Since it was a Sunday night, we were not able to get a live person on the line. When we were able the next morning, we were told that they would be able to help us… in about a week.

The second time was when we arrived at our new house here in Texas. I had not arranged for internet service before we arrived but thought that it would not be a problem getting immediate service—after all, the router was still attached to the wall. The internet company could simply switch the numbers and turn us on.

How foolish of me to think such an economical and environmentally sustainable solution could ever work. Each router box, I was told, belonged to the customer and could not be switched over to a new customer. We would have to order a new router, which would arrive in about four days.

My reaction to both situations was almost exactly the same.

First, anger. Why can’t they just get over here and get us set up!

Second, relief. We will have no internet connection. Perhaps if it goes well, we can even cancel the order and figure out a way to live internet-free again as we once did at the beginning of our marriage. Ah, those halcyon days of reading books, exchanging witty repartee, and engaging in old-fashioned conversations with people in our house and on our block. Treating internet either as a mere tool to be used on occasion or a luxury to be indulged for a few hours at the office or in a coffee shop. Bring back, I say, that loving wifi-free feeling.

Third, resignation. In both situations, the delight in being internet-free always turns to irritation that I must return again to our real-world version of the Matrix. “Must” in the sense of psychological compulsion and “must” in the sense of being compelled by the circumstances of modern life to return.

If it were only the psychological compulsion, I believe that I could indeed fly from the internet, if not permanently, at least for long periods of time. When I am capable of staying off for a day or two, my powers of concentration on long tasks re-emerge from wherever they were buried by the constant clicking of links to links to articles, social media posts, messages, and videos—the constant search for something new that will salve my soul or at least bring back excitement to my life. Keeping a disciplined life of internet usage thoroughly tethered to certain periods of time would be a possibility.

Yet this is where the second form of slavery, the second “must,” comes in. Almost every part of our social and business life these days requires the internet. Want to get the water going in your new house? Establish a business account with the city complete with email, username, and password. Want to have your kids do religious education at the parish? The secretary can’t do that; it requires an account with the parish complete with email, username, and password. Want to register for sports with your kids? It requires… well, you know. Even tickets for museums, sporting events, and shows now require one to boot up the computer.

I realize that such online registrations and accounts eliminate a lot of paperwork that would have to be submitted. Our internet slavery, you see, is the cost of trees living a fuller, more chlorofulphylled life. They also eliminate a lot of time one might have to drive places. Finally, they eliminate a lot of the interaction we would have to have with living beings either in person or on the phone. This is a double-edged sword, by the way. Many people these days have lost the capacity to deal with their fellow human beings on the phone or in person.

In fact, I think most of this is double-edged. The trees we have saved are probably balanced out—or even overwhelmed—by the carbon emissions from all our devices using all that electricity that (surprise!) has a carbon footprint we never think about. And the time we save? Well, this returns me to my theme.

Every time I am forced back on to the internet when I would rather be swimming or playing tennis or reading a book or talking to friends in person or praying, it is another opportunity for the slavery of compulsion to rear its ugly head. After all, if I’m on here to fill out all these forms related to my insurance policy or permission for my kids to attend the field trip or whatever else, I might as well check my email. . .and the news. . .and my LinkedIn profile. . .and what old friends and old enemies and old girlfriends are up to and on and on until, like the child who has just eaten the entire carton of ice cream, I am full and sick and yet somehow not satiated in my spirit.

Barring some catastrophe that returns us, at least for a while, to nineteenth-century-and-before modes of life, I do not foresee any change in my circumstances, however. The shackles of the second, externally-derived form of internet slavery seem unlikely to slip from me anytime soon. Fall softball, swim lessons, adjustments to my EZ Tag account, and recording grades, among other things, will require my booting up, logging in, and digging out the specific passwords (all of which have slightly different requirements) in order to get through my daily life.

A man who has never had anything but a flip phone, I have even recently (may God have mercy upon my soul) contemplated getting a smart phone to deal with the endless need to do things online.

What is left to me? Shall I be doomed forever, like Marley’s ghost, to wander the internet clinking (or, rather, clicking) my chains as I look back on the missed opportunities for becoming fully human?

I think not. What I and what I’d bet many others require to survive our pixelated age is an asceticism geared toward our age. No doubt this dad-bod needs periods of fasting lest my feasting simply become bingeing. This all-too-modern soul requires a great deal of fasting from news, memes, and viral videos lest I develop eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, and a mind that merely bobs along the surface of reality without actually plunging into its depths.

External shackles we will always have with us. Internal ones are the more worrisome, for they are the ones we forge ourselves. I said before that I thought, absent the requirements to be on the internet, I would be a balanced user and consumer of it. On second thought, however, I think this wrong. The deliverance wrought by tree limbs and bureaucratic rules about routers can only do so much. The real challenge must be faced with prayer, fasting, and the hard work of making sure that the online world is only a tool… and that I am not.

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The featured image is courtesy of Pixabay.