As it turns out, it was a very fitting book to read on the technoSabbath.

I have read it multiple times, but this time, something really jumped out at me. The rats want to uproot themselves and destroy the machines and technological comforts they had built for themselves and build an independent society. I have often had whimsical, nostalgic impulses to do the same thing. (Become a farmer, live off the land, forget all the stresses of the Rat Race (or the People Race according to Nicodemus)). 

That said, I am not planning on becoming a farmer any time soon, but I still really like the rats’ mentality in it all, which is:  Not all technological advance is desirable, or even moral. That is a mindset I am trying to cultivate in being a technoSabbatarian.

As a side note, I really like this TED talk by Joshua Klein on crows, where he thinks about possible cohabitation with species usually thought of as pests.  I also had this talk in mind while reading Rats of NIMH. 

With a little bit of searching, I managed to find this pdf that says all this, though I don’t know if this is exactly what my headmaster was referencing. 

What I took from that is: Christians fare well in crises. 

So, in relation to our current economic situation, this may be another time when Christians can thrive. Christians (the ones I know anyway) desire to live simply and in poverty, the World desires riches and honors. Christians rely on the Lord, the World is paralyzed by fear when its own methods are insufficient.

1. I had anticipated to some extent the huge draw that music and hanging out online would have on me, but was not prepared for the automatic reflex I have towards those things if I am ever near my computer. I had to make a flyer yesterday, so I decided I had to use my computer, but only use the word processor and only for 20 minutes. As soon as I flipped open the lid, I found my fingers felt like they already knew what to do, so they began the usual opening tabs and starting to play some music, until my brain informed them that today is different. I think my fingers felt slighted. I have a lot of shortcut keys set up, so I can open everything I usually do really quickly, without ever using the mouse. It really felt physically weird to not do it, though I did manage to resist the onslaught. 
2. Planning ahead is worth it. Given that all my hw assignments and schedule are online and on my computer, I have to plan carefully on Saturday so that I can do the things I have to do without the aid of anything online. That will take some extra planning, but I think it will be far more productive and ultimately more restful, which is the purpose of a Sabbath anyway. 

First: I made a lastgraph of my music listening history over the last year. While visually very nice, it also provides some really interesting data, and I am fascinated by data.

For instance, you can see spikes where finals weeks happened, or those few weeks in late July that were rainy and really slow at work, and so I was home from painting and, according to this, listened to music. What I found more interesting was there was not one week where I did not listen to music. I looked at the raw data, and even in the slowest weeks, I listened to an average of 2 songs a day. I found this rather shocking. That was the first event. 

I had this sort of self revelation or self evaluation of, “holy cow I listen to a ton of music.”

After this insight into myself, I had my second instance: I discovered technoSabbatarianism, the decision to unplug from the plugged in world from sun up to sundown. To quote the founder:

“And yet … there is some things about technological progress that is troubling to me. Deeply troubling. For one , it’s linked in many ways to a rationalist, modernist, enlightenment vision of reality that I simply don’t buy into. For another thing, I’ve read too many books likeFahrenheit 451 and Brave New World not to see glimpses of these dystopias in the viral consumerism that threaten to alter for the worse our basic understanding of what it means to be human and to be in society with one another — perhaps even what it means to relate to God. Furthermore, technological progress is a thing that is rarely called into question and much more rarely resisted in any way. We rush headlong, in fact, to fill our lives with its textureless lights and manufactured noises.

I intend to practice techno-Sabbatarianism (according to the Christian calendar) by resting from technology from sundown on Saturday (around the time when we usually practice an opening of the Lord’s Day ceremony in People of Praise) to sundown Sunday evening (or thereabouts).”

The full post is here.

I don’t want to say I had some sort of religious experience about this, but more to show that I was already thinking about technoSabbatarianism, though not in name.

I too intend to become thus, a little more removed from technology. I will let you know how it goes.

This is me, experimenting.

(Click to enlarge)

Tribute to xkcd.

Calvin struggles to put on galoshes, which make a galosh noise as Calvin walks contentedly through the snow, and then he stops, apparently confused. (Maybe he is confused why Bill drew him in this particular scene, and not doing something amazing.)

Am I missing something, or is Mr. Watterson human after all?