I'm continuing a thread started in Media Free? That's easy...and scary. Know why? (Part 1) and continued in Media Free? That's easy...and scary. Know why? (Part 2), pondering if it's true that people have a hard time unplugging and getting off the grid. I left off offering that people announcing their going off the grid and neighbors asking us to watch their house while they're away are linked at a very primitive level. I then spent a paragraph or sharing a little about how I think (I'm known as a "lateral" or "left-handed thinker") and inviting readers to enjoy the ride.
We pick the thread up there.
I commented in Brad Beren's Unplugging... why is it so hard? post that I didn't find it hard to unplug. In many ways my life is more under my own control than it has ever been before, me thinks, and that this might be due to my family's attempts at voluntary simplification.(Luddite warning)
I got a new cell phone three or so years ago, and only then because the one I'd been using for about four years got stolen. If that one hadn't been stolen I wouldn't have the new cell phone. When we went to get the new cell phone I told the dealer, "I want to make calls and receive calls. Voicemail would be nice but isn't necessary. I don't want to take pictures, I don't want to send pictures, I don't want to see pictures. I don't want text messages, I don't want email, I don't want to surf the 'net. I want a phone. I'm an old fart. Do you have any old fart phones?"
The salesperson, an exasperated under 25 something, called over an associate with gray in his hair who pulled a phone out of his pocket and showed it to me. "This what you want and lots of stuff you don't care about, but you can set it up so that stuff you don't care about never gets in the way of you doing what you want."
Sold!
I share this story to let you know that, perhaps, unplugging isn't as hard for me as it might be for some others.
One of NextStage's clients use to offer to set me up with the PDA they produced. Never happened, even though our CEO and CTO couldn't live without theirs and got the newest models every time they came out.
(more to follow)
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- Email Bankruptcy blog posts
- The Eventing Yourself Blog arc
- Going Off the Grid
- In this arc:
- MediaFreeZones
- Proof I'm a Luddite
- Unplugging... why is it so hard?
- Voluntary Simplification blog posts
- IMedia Brand Summit on 9-12 Sept 07
- XChange on 20-21 Sept 07
- DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
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