The Before Times - Memories of the Pre-digital World

I am old enough to have grown up in the time before the internet, before smart phones, before social media.

It is difficult to communicate to more recent generations what is was like to simply exist in those times, the way it felt to live, to think, to feel, to experience life. The way, it seems, our brains were actually running on a different frequency, at a different rhythm. The way it felt to be alone. Alone with your thoughts.

When I was a child, we came face to face with raw boredom from the moment we woke up in bed. If we wanted to be entertained, we had to get up and find entertainment. Sure, we could turn on the television, and if there happened to be something worth watching, we could enter into a technological media trance not completely unlike the modern scroll-stupor. Yet, the television did not follow us around when we went out the door. It was not infinitely available. If something boring came on, you would just turn it off. The primary sources of entertainment were reliant on our own creative attention.

As an only child, I had to be creative about entertaining myself. I read a lot of books. As a child, I could sit and read for hours. I could sit and draw for hours. I could sit around staring at the sky for hours.

These were the times when parents allowed their children to roam wild, without supervision, all day long. I would get on my bicycle and ride over to my friends houses and we would ride all around town, ride to the beach, ride to the wildernesses outside town, swim in (and drink safely from) the rivers, climb trees, dig holes. We explored every nook and cranny of the town, finding every abandoned or overgrown lot, riding up and down every hill. We waded through waist deep water in storm drains, walking toward distant points of light, just to find out where we would pop out. We did all sorts of things I would be horrified to learn that my own children were doing. Sometimes we got hurt, but not usually too badly. We lived with this fight against boredom, constantly searching for something new to do and experience.

In those times, if you wanted to share an idea you would have to say it out loud, or write it down for later repetition. If you created art, or a game, or played an instrument, you were alone with that creation, unless you connected directly with another human, going into their presence and communicating face to face. Yes, telephones existed. You could call people, but the phone seemed more like a basic way to touch base with a friend, on the way to seeing them in person. "Are you home? I'm coming over!" And if you could not reach them by phone, you might just ride around, hoping to run into them, or maybe someone else just as fun.

In those times, if you found yourself sitting alone in a room, then that was it, you were really alone. You were grounded in the silent present, you were in that room by yourself. Your thoughts were your own, and your thoughts filled up that room. In the absence of external stimulation, your thoughts became more vivid, more expansive. There was time and silence in which to think. This is the state of mind I think many people no longer have access to. Maybe they do not even know that that state of mind exists.

Naturally, like everyone else, I eventually found myself addicted to scrolling the internet, my mind filled with noise, the constant urge to check "what's happening" online right now, the sense that I might miss something vitally important. Yet I know that other, calmer, quieter, freer state of mind exists. When I get too far away from it, when I do not enter into it for too long, I begin to feel that something is not right. I understand that this new feeling is wrong, it is bad, it is unhealthy, and it is taking something away from me, something I used to have, something that was important and good and right.

Even though I am relatively detached from social media, the pull of the internet and the online world is always there. It is hard not to peer through the digital window, especially when there are important world events unfolding.

When I realise I have found myself back in that bad place, I have learned to take a step back, to disengage. I remind myself that there is very little happening in the world that is under my direct control, and that whether or not I pay close attention makes very little difference to anything. That sense of urgency, the demand for my attention, is an illusion.

I remind myself that if I have anything to offer the world, I will not find it by scrolling the internet. I will find it by being alone with my thoughts, allowing my thoughts and ideas to grow and fill my head, fill the room, and maybe eventually spill over into the wider world.

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