A Day Less Digital or It Ain’t Easy Being Green.

In truth I wasn’t even gonna participate in this rumble, not because I felt it would be too difficult, but I kinda forgot about it and it was nearing the deadline, oh and it’s also a rumble based on likes. Enter again the time crunch issue. However I decided Monday night a couple hours before 12am EST that to hell with the winning/not winning factor, Let’s Do This!

I didn’t have time to prepare for this, well not really prepare myself but notify others that for 24 hours i’ll be more than unreachable by means of any digital devices. That is the true test though, in todays society one would be required to live as a nomad.

Ok, so I prepared to shut down the computer, turn off the iPad and cell phone, say my fair-wells to the Xbox and LCD TV and began to think of the following days activities. As it turned out, not too surprisingly, it was filled with lomography. I planned and plotted the locations I’d go to take lomographs and the films and cameras I’d bring. I then thought of the other competitions I needed to get pictures for, articles I still needed to write for reviews, and also what reading material I’d partake in that day. With this agenda in mind I slept until my body decided to awake and I was hungry. Long story short, I got a coffee and buttered roll at the Bodega up the street, the clock on the wall told me it was 9:30am. I returned home and tackled my first task at hand, Spring Cleaning!

Fast forwarding through the day, throughout the writing and indoor photo shoots, I learned that I missed music terribly. I had no means of listening to music! It was all digital and the quiet was driving me mad, I had to go and seek some bit of noise or activity at least. I packed up and walked out to the Park/Beach, The day was nice albeit a bit windy, however I knew there’d be presence at the Park. I spent some time, took some great photos and headed back home. This is where and when things got interesting. I got back home and felt like taking a nap, I dozed off for a bit and was abruptly awoken by a knocking at my door, I got up and it was my 3 year old god daughter standing there with a big smile on her face, “Hi Uncle Ben, lets play the hand game” she said. What she was referring to was playing Kinectimals on my Xbox, she was in the living room with the controller in her hand and turning on the Xbox faster than I had closed the door. You now see my dilemma. I ran into the living room and shut off the system with a single press of a button, universal remotes you gotta love them. She pouted and was upset until I said, “Hey lets go outside and blow bubbles”. Well that changed everything, she was so excited and was jumping up and down. Phew, crisis averted!

Once we had our fill of bubbles, my god daughter returned home and I returned to my couch where I wound down with a couple of books, you may know one of them yourself, Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity and If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him!. I ended up not reading much of If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him!, it was rather heavy and it felt late enough for my eyelids to become heavy too. I dozed off and awoke later in the night, to find it was almost tomorrow, I referred to the thermostat on the wall for the time. I eagerly waited for the time to be 12:01am, it finally came ‘round and I was introduced back into “Today”!

As much as we’d like to leave all this digital behind sometimes, it is nice and convenient to have certain aspects of technology around us, as it is engrained in most of our personal and social lives. However it was a nice change of pace, and physical and mental break from the norm. Thanks to LSI for urging me to accept this challenge!

written by blormore on 2011-03-24