Offline 24 hours

I did the offline challenge from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. 

I read a lot more, but the reading of the books I wasn't able to look up historical people and now I'm not as motivated to look them up. Not sure which is better for reading, reading without stopping or reading enhanced by the support of Wikipedia. I couldn't ask questions to the hive mind: I wanted to know if a certain book was worth reading. They'd steered me away from a book too late the last time too. But they recommended the group bio of the Transcendentalists I'd gotten.

I finished a book on Margaret Fuller by Megan Marshall that won the Pulitzer and I highly recommend. I also finished James Shapiro's book on Shakespeare in a Divided America. Really good book too. Now I'm reading Goldberg's book on haiku, and traveling in Japan, called Three Simple Lines. I don't really like it pretend that they have the insight always that we're not separate, but speak the language of insight, which Goldberg does, but I do like travel books, and it's good on the history of the three major Haiku poets according to Ginsberg. Goldberg is also traveling with Joan Halifax, whose Fruitful Darkness I thought was amazing, though so far she hasn't had a conversation included in the book, with her.

Not seeing the news wasn't bad. I could probably get away from reading the paper every day. I'm definitely going to do it once a week, but I'm tempted to do it every other day.

I defined my offline to include being offline but downloaded previously or the radio. I wasn't going to touch my laptop, phone, ipad or radio. It was for the silence. I mean I could download a book and read it on my iPad, but I'm also tempted then to look things up online on wikipedia. Radio isn't online, but in a way it's technology that distracts me. My point was to no have technological distractions beyond books, which I know is arbitrary. A harder fast, I'm not ready for yet, includes books. No text. I might have to work up to that. 

A buddhist friend said "yuck" when I said I did something for the renunciation of something. I think renunciation is good. I remember one person presenting a book that included renouncing elevators and hot water. I don't travel on that many elevators, and cold showers are not something I'm ready for though I'm celibate for the time being.

I had a friend that aspired to be a Shabbat goy, and I notice that this offline thing aligns with the orthodox Jewish people in my neighborhood who walk a lot outside with family, and say "Shabbat shalom". I even envied this practice of avoiding technology. But I'll use the stove, and phone. 

I did call my son to check in with him, and let my daughter talk to him. And I was tired and I ended my fast 23 hours, an hour early. But I'll get there in the future. 

I went for a walk I might not have gone for, but I felt my Covid symptoms come back, so it wasn't a happy walk for me. My breath was short and I got a headache. That's why I indulged in watching TV before I went to bed early. Covid is no joke, it sucks.