I noticed some people opting for a break from social media in May and I thought it’d be a good idea to do something similar. I do enjoy looking at the updates of other people on the various platforms, and I still rely on certain platforms to get news that can only be found there, but I think I spend too much time on the internet in general and I would rather do other things in the limited free time I have.
So, this is a list of what I was up to on a day off the other day instead of trawling the web:
I listened to an episode of the The Essay that I had recorded from BBC Radio 3 (I would like to write a quick post on how I have set this system up, but in a nutshell, I use a combination of yt-dlp and VLC. For some reason, yt-dlp doesn’t do the job on its own). Last week’s episodes were themed around mythical mountains, and the Monday episode featured Mount Qaf introduced by Elif Shafak (who wrote The Island of Missing Trees). It also touched on the poem The Conference of the Birds that mentions this mountain. I was in the waiting room of a clinic so I had some time to read up on and learn about all these things, and so I had a very good time while waiting.
I went to the library to borrow 希望の国のエクソダス (“Exodus of the Country of Hope”) by Ryu Murakami, and I found the album 12 by Ryuichi Sakamoto in the CD section. I listened to that later, and it is really nice. I enjoyed async the most so far, but I just love how he works with sound and textures and time. 12 has a very sombre atmosphere, but the composition also has a majestic feeling to it. It’s a bit hard to describe.
Anyway, I borrowed the book because Karous quotes one phrase from it: 希望だけはないんだ (“The only thing missing is hope”). The larger context of the phrase is something like “This place has everything. Everything but hope.” It’s a very intriguing phrase and I had wanted to read the book for a while. I hope I’ll be able to read it in a month—part of the aim of this social media break is to get some more time for reading.
Went swimming. I’m not too bad at swimming now, but I still can’t move my legs very smoothly. My arms carry me a lot. I often end up tiring myself out by using too much force, but I managed to swim in a more relaxed way this time.
Played a bit of GGAC+R with my eldest. I grew up with Street Fighter so I don’t really know how to play Guilty Gear, but it was fun trying to do the specials and supers while also figuring out combos.
It was a good day!
So, the plan in short is to use social media less, but here’s the plan in more detail:
I’ve uninstalled social media apps, and I’ve logged out from all my social media accounts in my mobile browser. I can always log into my accounts in the browser if I want to check or post something but I want to have a small barrier to doing so.
I’m keeping the web version of my library app open in a tab on my phone, and I’m aiming to read The Paris Review or some other magazine while waiting at red lights or when I have a free moment. It worked well enough today, at the very least.
I still need to figure this out, but I want to make more time to read library books as well as my own paper and digital books. The Ryu Murakami book I borrowed is like 400 pages, so I need to read like 10+ pages a day on average to finish it in a month. Maybe I can try reading in the evenings, but I’m often very tired at the end of weekdays. I’ll worry about that later.
Instead of turning on my main computer to browse and stuff, I’m gonna try using my older laptop with Linux and try to avoid launching the graphical web browser when possible. I’m currently writing this post in vim, and I’m using the elinks browser in a terminal window to get most of the links I have included in this post as well.
I want to write blog posts more or make music or just do something creative if possible, but I don’t think I will have enough time for all the things in this plan! Not gonna worry too much if I don’t end up doing everything I want to, but I’ll be happy as long as I can get myself away from the internet even just a little bit.
Anwyway, that’s all for now. I might add to this post later this month, but maybe not. Hope to see you again!
By mojilove on 2025-04-26