Inbox - 40 messages

My e-mail inbox has just 40 messages in it. I haven't had that few since I first got Internet access back in 1991. I have spent the last 2 months removing myself and unsubscribing from as many e-mail subscriptions as possible. It's amazing how much crap we get and how inundated we are with advertising and people wanting us to vote this way or that, or call this congressman or that one or buy this piece of junk or that.

The first month on this hike is going to be an interesting period of Detox as I purge the urges to stay 'connected' from my brain and body. But I suspect it will happen pretty quickly. I've never been too fond of the telephone and we've not had cable TV in many months. The Internet on the other hand, may take a little longer.

I'm looking forward to not being connected, actually. Oh, I'll still check in and update my page during the next six months, but being able to do it only occasionally will hopefully allow me to go back to a simpler time when my journeys did not have to consider whether or not there is a place to plug in my various chargers.

I made a comment to a friend recently who was very much plugged into her Personal Data Assistant (PDA) that those devices are contributing to the breakdown of civility and the art of personal communications. She scoffed at the idea the very same way that addicts deny that they have a problem with their particular drug of choice.

She went on to 'explain' how her cell phone keeps her in contact with her family and clients, and how her Bluetooth headset allows her to do several things at once, and as she spoke, my mind slowly drifted off to a particular part of the Smoky Mountains where you can round a bend a find yourself standing literally, on top of the world, surrounded by the crisp 'Christmasy' scent of pine and where the white billowy wisps of the surrounding clouds dance just below the drop off where you are standing. The afternoon sunlight reflects like little starlets off of the droplets of morning dew which still cling to some of the plants. And just above you in the bright blue sky, a small group of Ravens rides the thermals which intersperse with chilled pockets of air keeping them aloft. Their squawks serve either to warn me that I should not be in the skies where they dance and play, or they are instead welcoming me for having broken free of my sea-level existence. In either case, they are beautiful to behold, and I thank God for having brought me there.

As I snapped back to the present, my friend made one last plea about how she gets so much more done now because she can always have her schedule accessible no matter where she is, and I just nodded as if I agreed with her. Perhaps she is right and her PDA has really made a difference in her life. Personally, I would rather go with the clouds and pretend I was up there soaring majestically with the Ravens.

Ron