Annual Internet Fast

Each year I try to go for one month without any non business related surfing. Some years I have more success than others. Most of the time I can make it for a full month, while other years I last for two or three weeks and then find myself surfing without even having decided to! I’ll still post if I have something to say, and I’ll still use the net as a professional resource of course. But I’m going to try to make it to May 2^nd without leisure or news surfing. Nothing except what’s strictly required for work.

It’s not that I feel I have a problem in terms of obsessively surfing – it’s more a mental health break. At least once a year I feel it’s important to remind myself that the world gets along just fine without my being constantly aware of it. I find that I can forget sometimes that I actually have a right to not be informed about what’s going on in the world if I choose. Nothing screws up your ability to prioritize information according to your own personal agenda like daily news and blog surfing. Taking a month off is a combination of mental housecleaning and defragmenting and even in years when I don’t make the full month, I find it incredibly refreshing. If anything momentous happens in the world, like Hillary sneezing or Brangelina buying a new African accessory baby, I’m sure I’ll hear about it somehow.

Back to the Gym

Kenn and I have started working out at the local squash club just across the street. It’s got a great gym, kind of old and run down but with a regular neighborhood crowd who don’t believe in spending thousands of dollars on “performance wear” or aluminum water bottles. Just my speed. It actually reminds me of the old downstairs gym at the YMCA on Burrard street in Vancouver – torn down after 65 years to make room for a brand new state of the art, world-class facility. In every measurable sense, the new YMCA gym will be “better”, but like everything else in Vancouver, it comes at the expense of a little bit of the city’s character and history.

Some Guy Said Something Cool About History…

Was it something about people who don’t learn from history…having to do something over again? Or maybe take a class over? Something like that. I can’t remember. I think I might have seen it on Digg.