Creative Endeavors, The Home of BoxcarOkie.com

I am sure a great many of you have noticed that here lately I have been taking a day off every now and then.  I call it “floating a day” and I do my best to get away from the computer, the internet, and the keyboard.

Having been diagnosed (correctly I might add) by my wife as “internet committed or addicted” I have to agree with her.  I hardly ever miss a day at the keyboard anymore, and have to force myself to take a most welcome break from this every now and then.

Here is the problem:  I don’t know what it is about it that I find so compelling or alluring, a great deal of the time it is bothersome in nature.  When you are so confused and lost that you no longer have a clue, then I would venture to say, you are in trouble.

The other day I was reflecting on how uncomplicated and simple my life was without the internet and computers in general.  It seems to me, looking back on it all, that it was better BEFORE these two items invaded my space and my life.

This week in particular has been rather stressful; I am forced to deal with change again, learning a new operating system (Vista) and how to operate all these little gadgets and widgets that are supposed to add to the quality of my life.

Unfortunately for me, change as you grow older is not easy, change of any sort is more difficult and less welcome, you don’t relish change, but instead, resist.

It would be nice to sit back and blame all of this on society in general or someone other than myself, but the truth is, “I was one of the first to sign on, and rushed headlong into the computerized fray” that we live in today.

I could not wait.

Now it seems I am snared, caught up in it, and cannot escape its allure or pull on my life.  Instead of enriching my life, increasing my time, making me more productive and simplifying my duties and chores, it often complicates and consumes my time and resources.  I am caught up and trapped by an electronic monster of man’s making.

Thus giving a totally new meaning to the word “world-wide-web.”

Recently I read where more than a dozen students at Mundelein High School outside Chicago were experimenting with simplifying their lives by going without one modern convenience every month.  Last November they gave up sugar and eating at chain restaurants; in December they swore off television.  In January they wrote only on used paper, and last month they avoided buying anything thing that could not be recycled.  Currently, they are doing without cell phones and in April, this month, it’s the internet.

They are said to be learning much about self-reliance.

There is a certain pride in saying “no” to things.  Having reached a point in life where I realized that “my things owned me, and I did not own them” I found myself desperately trying to divest our home of these anchors of life that were dragging us down.

This is admirable, but you see, in our relationship I am the “heaver” and she is the “stuffer” so we naturally clash on what goes and what stays.

We had three garage sales last year, over the winter we boxed the remainder of it up and have it ready for the auctioneer sometime this summer, the left-overs will go to charity.

Believe it or not … Life has gotten surprisingly a little bit more simplified and uncluttered, and I have managed to retrieve or reclaim some of it back for me and the Mrs.  Now if I could just find a cure for this internet-computer addiction-thing (my daily information-age compulsion) I would have it made.

See you in the funny papers.

OOO