Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
May 20, 2011 at 1:08am
For that moment when I thought maybe I'd been cut off from the news, something in me kind of thought--that would be nice, for a while.
Back in the pre-Internet days I remember running into a backpacker in Bangkok who had just come back from India. He'd been there for a while, and that was back when no one could find you if you did that. I'll never forget his face when I told him what was by then old news. He just kept saying it over and over. He couldn't take it in. "Jerry? Jerry's dead?"
Part of me really likes the idea of not looking at the news for months. Going so far off the grid that I really wouldn't hear about it if total regional war broke out.
Do you think that's still possible? Where would you go?
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Comments :
Jan '11
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Jesuits do it routinely.
St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, created a month-long program of prayer, called The Spiritual Exercises. The Exercises can be done in several forms, but the standard practice is for 30 days of silence.
It's the most powerful experience of a Jesuit's life. Before it, I worried that silence would be so unnatural and weird that it would be grueling. It turned out to be paradise. I loved it.
One quick anecdote ... when I took the Exercises for the first time, it was in January of 1984. While I was away from the media on retreat, Burger King had started a new ad campaign. Afterwards, we retreatants all had the strangest experience of people coming up to us and saying "Where's the beef?" and then smiling at us.
We thought we had come back to ... the Twilight Zone.
Sep '10
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Apparently this fellow called Todd Bucholz http://www.toddbuchholz.com/archives/186 has written a book that argues that we are better off not departing from the "rat race". I think the truth is in the middle. I wake up and check on the euro debt markets and the copper markets and China and I like knowing about and to some extent worrying about all this stuff but I also recognize that most of it is noise. So there is tremendous value in silence and getting away. For me, getting away and persuing physical exhaustion through excersize are really linked.
Feb '11
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Ganymede.
Aug '10
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
To sea.
Jun '10
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Where would I go? To a cabin by a lake, with a private dock, a boat or canoe, and some fishing gear. And nobody close for miles around. A few mountains within view would be a nice plus.
Nov '10
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Spent three weeks in Northern Alaska along the pipeline right before the 2008 elections. The absence not just of media, but of nearly all human contact, probably added a year or two to my life.
I had the rare experience one day of sitting on top of a small mountain just south of the Brooks Range, by myself, surrounded by thousands of square miles of empty wilderness, with no wind, no insect or bird sounds, no engine noise, no sound at all except my own breathing. Had it not been for the pipeline below, there would have been no indication of human existence at all. I will always remember that.
Upon return to civilization I found I had missed little of consequence. The names had changed, but the human condition had not. Maybe I should plan another trip for fall of 2012?
Jan '11
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Bundi, in SE Rajasthan. No English-language newspapers. No Hindi newspapers. No internet cafes. It's so remote the locals haven't even grasped the idea of begging from tourists.
If you can stand the cultural shock of handing your dirty clothes to the guest house keeper for laundering, and thereafter seeing your underwear spread out on the town square to dry in all its holey glory, it's a great place to pretend the world doesn't exist.
Jul '10
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Detroit.
Oct '10
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
Squishy Blue RINO is right. Mrs. and I lived for twelve years on a sailboat. You can remain connected out there, anywhere in the world, with the right gadgets. But, if you choose to disconnect you can. The problem is making the choice. Once we get used to the instant communication we are enjoying here it is difficult to give it up.
The Brooks Range of Alaska is another possibility as J. C. Casteel points out.
Again it requires effort and determination.
Jul '10
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
I'd "go postal."
Mar '11
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
...Wait, Jerry's dead?!?
;-)
Mar '11
Re: Communication Breakdown and a Long Strange Trip
About 10 or so years ago, some MIT grad student did his dissertation on the balance between technology helping man and man serving technology and went tech free for a year by moving to an Amish community. He wrote a book, Better Off. Interesting read.