Liberate Yourself from E-Slavery

Tune Out and Turn Off

Do something radical.... Check your e-mail only once or twice a day, and
• do not check it at home. Wait a few days before answering an e-mail. Use formal salutations and closings when writing e-mails.
• Do not send an e-mail when the matter can be discussed face to face. Write letters instead of sending e-mail.
• Do not use e-mail for thank-you notes. Set your home free from broadband Internet access.
• Do not answer the phone after 8 p.m.... Throw your television in the street.

Fill the space and quiet you have created with things that never grow old.... Read and shop for good books. Read books aloud to your children and to your spouse.
• Learn calligraphy or how to draw.
• Learn the guitar and some folk songs.
• Learn “The Ballad of John Henry,” about the man who died in a heroic contest with a machine.

If you must go online ... use your real name. Anything else is a deception. Look things up online on Tuesdays and Thursdays only. Before dialing up the Internet recite a prayer consecrating your time online to God. Make every Friday a “techfast”:
• no Internet,
• no cell phones,
• no e-mail, etc.

Read poetry. Memorize poetry. Write poetry. Writing a poem is an incarnational act, even if it’s done badly. “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly,” wrote Chesterton. Even a partial attempt to unplug from the matrix will bring us
• closer to the people in our lives,
• closer to our history and traditions, and
• closer to our God.

-- Christopher Check