i anxiety

Remember when you first got email? How excited you were to check it, how excited you were to get email? I rarely approach checking my email with that kind of enthusiasm any more. In fact, often times I log in and see how many I have and feel some combination of exhaustion, resentment and responsibility and then what happens, oddly, is that I focus on taking care of the “Have-to’s” and hit “save as new” for the friends I want to spend more time responding to. Then days go by, and even that can start to feel burdensome. The truth is as much as I love my iphone (and I do, I do!), and recognize there are tremendous benefits to having the kind of communication technology allows us, there are times when it all just makes me feel…well…unhealthy. Over the years I have learned a great deal as a result of teaching the benefits of technology, but have maintained a wary personal distance between myself and all of modern sciences bells and whistles, because a lot of it is at odds with the kind of physical activity I strive for. And that’s when I have a fantasy about running off to some place like Colorado and building myself a cabin in the woods and planting crops, and meeting a strapping plaid-shirted woodsman/architect/naturalist who is good with his hands and mind and we decide to make a life there, away from it all. Except sometimes we have to go into town (we’re only a 30 minute drive away from it all—oh wait, no cars, a fifteen minute bike away from it all, except those paved roads mean civilization, so maybe horses…???) so I can hit great restaurants and get good wine, and groceries, and meet and hang out with friends at some microbrewery. And of course there would need to be electricity in that cabin, because otherwise where would I plug in my iphone? Of course there is irony, because I have a blog and a website that promotes health and having such things means more time on my butt when I might be better off at the gym. I'd much rather talk to a friend in person, or by phone, than email. But there are those with whom I do enjoy some witty texting, and a few Words with Friends moves are the perfect mental cooldown before bed. Heck, I even love my imap my ride app which I use on long cycling trips to check my mph and map my course (even though it totally sucks my battery.) I was feeling pretty good these last few months about getting off the ground with this website, starting to balance using more technology—and not letting it use me. And then something happened. About two weeks ago a letter went out to all the faculty of the Fiction Writing Department (where I work at Columbia College Chicago) announcing that my Chair, Randy Albers, would not be returning as Chair come fall. I won’t go on at length about Randy, because I think the over two hundred petition signers and over 80 testimonials (so far) on AlbersforChair.org speak to why we feel so strongly about this man, my boss, my mentor. I will say this decision was a direct result of a number of things having to do with administrators handling a “prioritization” restructuring process badly, and a group of us part time faculty members decided immediately that something needed to be done. Enter technology, and, within days, technology had made me her bitch. My colleagues and I built a website, emailed, Tweeted, wrote petitions and testimonials, worked on Google docs; I got on Facebook (finally, I know, I know…) and then spend the next 10 days exhausting myself using all the bells and whistles of the internet. I came down with a sinus infection within five days of almost non-stop interfacing. Every waking minute was about playing catch-up: I’d teach a class and come back to sixty emails. Students were starting to get involved and a Facebook group was started and questions were flying. So much of my energy started to go toward reaction—responding to other people’s thoughts and questions and comments-- there was no energy left for anything else. Thank god for my Pilates clients and classes. Those hours were the ones I felt recharged because I could get out of my head and into my body (and help others get into their bodies). In some ways, I think I’ve done some of my best teaching this week, in both my Pilates and Fiction classes, because I was so appreciative of the areas of my body and mind that weren’t getting worked running the revolution. And it wasn’t just me. All of us were noticing it. (I mean, if you haven’t experienced working on a Google doc with five people at once, you aren’t livin’!) And there seems to be a pattern with the technology and how it gets you: first it’s like a drug; you get a buzz using it and want more. Then you start to feel worn out, but you can’t stop. Except, of course, you can. And that has been the trick. Determining how and when to use it is, I think, what I am trying to figure out, and one of the things this fantastic group of writers and I have figured out is that we don’t need to share our every thought in an online forum, or text, or email; that there is sometimes value to sitting on a thought for a day, and talking a walk, or spending time with family; there is value to figuring out what recharges you—like exercise, perhaps—and making that come first. There is value to slowing down and reacting less, so you can act with more thought and precision. And I try to think about something my dad once told me: he said you could try to create something every day. Now maybe that is an idea you create, and you share it in a posting. Or maybe it’s just a thought you create while going for a walk. Maybe it’s a piece of writing, or art. Maybe it’s a healthy meal, or a lot of sweat from a good workout. Creating is what we do, as humans, but the quality of our creations can be diminished by the speed at which we try to share them. Just because there is speed available to connect doesn’t mean I need to let that speed rush me into doing so. So today I am beginning to limit myself. I am rationing the technology. This morning I caught up on emails, and Facebook, then logged off. I made some fresh grapefruit juice with ginger which I drank slowly while I focused on writing this blog posting. Because this is also important to me—this blog, and this search for balance, and all those people out there who also struggle with it with their families and nutrition and jobs and art, and technology, and all the other things in our life that are have-to’s and want-to’s. And now that this post is up, and I’ve made a fantastic playlist of 80s songs for my Pilates class tonight, I’m going to go get on my bike, go out for late lunch, and then ride downtown. And I’m going to try to notice the things around me as I ride—the smell of this March Chicago day, the sounds of the city, the little stores that are making it, still, on Milwaukee Avenue, and the ones that aren’t. Because Ferris Bueller was right about life moving pretty fast, but writer John Freedman is also right in his Manifesto for Slow Communication when he argues that the speed at which we do something, anything, changes our experience of it. And ultimately, it’s the human experiences I want to be able to do better, with technology’s help, not vice versa.