Our media fast went along similar lines. I didn't keep it perfectly, but 90% I only used the internet for communicating with family members via email, and for official business, like checking to see if Orchestra is cancelled this week, or if we'll need to take jackets to the late-night church service. Exceptions were substack subscriptions that come directly to my inbox-- I tried to be selective about them, skim, and either delete or save to read after lent if it looked important/interesting. Observations on it very much in line with yours: such a *relief* to not be tracking and reacting to the daily news cycle. Now that lent is over, I've gone back to my RSS page and deleted several blogs and webcomics, because I found that, rather than looking forward to catching up on them, I didn't want to look at the backlog-- the thought was nauseating. Looking at those things every day is not a net positive thing in my life, even though I faithfully checked them before. But when I was checking them every day I couldn't *see* that they were a drag on my soul. Forty days gives some needed perspective.
It's amazing how much *time* it frees up. And it lets me get a little peek at how much of what's going through my head at any moment is not my thoughts, but just something from the internet. I'm so unoriginal! And also very compulsive. Even without news... limit myself to essentials, and it's amazing how many times I *need* to check the weather report. I forget what it said five minutes ago and have to check it again! This doesn't happen with things I've seen written on paper, so I feel like it might be a feature of the medium, and I'm pondering what that means. Is it inherent? Is it designed that way? To make you feel informed while you dump information as fast as you read it?
It was a good thing to do. I often feel like I'm not doing anything really, for lent, because I'm diabetic, husband has some awkward food allergies, and I have a kid under age 5, so all of us fasting together is just not a thing that we've been able to work out yet. Trying to force it means becoming a harassed short-order cook in my own house, so the vegan thing is a no-go for our family, right now. I'm not good enough at logistics. We do other things food-wise, but probably none of them would pass muster as fasting by the official rules. I hope we'll get to the point some day where we can find something that's compatible with the rules, but I'm not hanging my heart on it. As St. John Chrysostom says in the Paschal homily:
"Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away."
Every year, I get to Pascha lamenting all the ways I have failed at the fast. And every year St. John reassures us all :)
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Our media fast went along similar lines. I didn't keep it perfectly, but 90% I only used the internet for communicating with family members via email, and for official business, like checking to see if Orchestra is cancelled this week, or if we'll need to take jackets to the late-night church service. Exceptions were substack subscriptions that come directly to my inbox-- I tried to be selective about them, skim, and either delete or save to read after lent if it looked important/interesting. Observations on it very much in line with yours: such a *relief* to not be tracking and reacting to the daily news cycle. Now that lent is over, I've gone back to my RSS page and deleted several blogs and webcomics, because I found that, rather than looking forward to catching up on them, I didn't want to look at the backlog-- the thought was nauseating. Looking at those things every day is not a net positive thing in my life, even though I faithfully checked them before. But when I was checking them every day I couldn't *see* that they were a drag on my soul. Forty days gives some needed perspective.
It's amazing how much *time* it frees up. And it lets me get a little peek at how much of what's going through my head at any moment is not my thoughts, but just something from the internet. I'm so unoriginal! And also very compulsive. Even without news... limit myself to essentials, and it's amazing how many times I *need* to check the weather report. I forget what it said five minutes ago and have to check it again! This doesn't happen with things I've seen written on paper, so I feel like it might be a feature of the medium, and I'm pondering what that means. Is it inherent? Is it designed that way? To make you feel informed while you dump information as fast as you read it?
It was a good thing to do. I often feel like I'm not doing anything really, for lent, because I'm diabetic, husband has some awkward food allergies, and I have a kid under age 5, so all of us fasting together is just not a thing that we've been able to work out yet. Trying to force it means becoming a harassed short-order cook in my own house, so the vegan thing is a no-go for our family, right now. I'm not good enough at logistics. We do other things food-wise, but probably none of them would pass muster as fasting by the official rules. I hope we'll get to the point some day where we can find something that's compatible with the rules, but I'm not hanging my heart on it. As St. John Chrysostom says in the Paschal homily:
"Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away."
Every year, I get to Pascha lamenting all the ways I have failed at the fast. And every year St. John reassures us all :)
https://www.acrod.org/readingroom/patristics/sjc-paschal-homily