I'm writing this on a device called the Freewrite Traveler. I've been using it off and on for the past few years, but in the last six months it's become my first choice for typing. Eventually, of course, I have to open these text files on my computer to add links and formatting, and then to upload the revised documents to a server — which delivers them to you. Hi.
Here's most of what I'm doing these days:
walking and taking photos with a camera
reading books and magazines on paper
watching movies on Blu-Ray and DVD
dictating thoughts onto my little Sony voice recorder
writing in a notebook
typing on the Traveler
Yes, it's true that when I get up in the morning I go through my email and my RSS feeds. And when I see anything interesting I share it on micro.blog or save it to MarsEdit so I can write it up later for my big blog. But on most days I am at that point, around 8am, essentially finished with the internet. I spend less time on the internet now than I've done in the past, what? — twenty-five years, maybe.
As you can see from the above list, I spend less time on the computer also. With increasingly accurate OCR of handwriting, and increasingly accurate voice transcription software, I can do almost all my real intellectual work away from the computer, away from the online world, and then, at a fairly late stage in the process, transfer all my speaking and writing to the computer for editing. (Well, the Traveler is a kind of computer, I guess. But a very limited one.)
Anyway, it's great. I recommend without reservations this way of doing things. It brings peace to my heart and mind.
It took me a while to get to this point. When I first adopted this strategy, I frequently caught myself hanging around online in the mindless scroll, noticing that almost everything I read was stupid but being ... I dunno, maybe intrigued by the stupidity. But now I can't wait to be done, to step away from the computer and get back to the books and records and notebooks. I think this is what happened: I spend so much time now with excellence — with beautiful music and thoughtful writing and well-told cinematic tales — that that's become my new normal, and as a result I can no longer bear the constant stream of online nonsense: the preening and mockery and the quick announcement of political dogma (taken by fools as epigrammatic wisdom). I've had enough of it, more than enough, a surfeit.
I understand of course that many of you can't do what I've done; many of you are tied to your computers for much of the working day. I am aware that I am exceptionally blessed to be able to stay for long periods in a chair or at a desk with no internet access within reach. I'm trying to make the best of that blessing, and to share whatever benefits come to me with y'all. But I would encourage you to look for ways to limit your screen time. I know, I know, it's an old story, an old warning, an old wag of the finger. But it's good advice all the same.
Right now I'm mainly writing the life of Dorothy L. Sayers, as many of you will know. But because it's a biography — and a word-limited one at that: I can't go over 80,000 words — there's much that I want to say about her work that I can't fit into the book. So starting next week I'll be doing a series of posts on my big blog about her play The Emperor Constantine — not a well-known work by any means, and not her best work, but interesting in several ways. One point of interest is Sayers's decision to dramatize the debates about the nature of Jesus Christ that dominated the first Council of Nicaea — thus attempting to put into practice her oft-repeated claim that in orthodox Christianity "the dogma is the drama." Obviously this is a matter of evergreen relevance, but perhaps the play is worth focusing on now because this year is the 1700th anniversary of that Council.
Anyway, stay tuned!
If you are a current financial supporter of my writing, I thank you. If you are a past supporter of my writing, I thank you. If you will support my writing in the future, I proleptically thank you. If you are reading this and will never support me, may you be eternally curs — JUST KIDDING. I love you all the same, even you.
I'm going to sign off now with a phrase that Bob Dylan used back in Covidtide: Stay safe, stay observant, and may God be with you —
Alan