{"id":35,"date":"2006-05-10T19:23:34","date_gmt":"2006-05-10T19:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.neolefty.org\/wordpress\/?p=35"},"modified":"2006-05-10T19:23:34","modified_gmt":"2006-05-10T19:23:34","slug":"an-internal-clamour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/2006\/05\/10\/an-internal-clamour\/","title":{"rendered":"An internal clamour"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I’m in Tokyo for a conference<\/a> for work<\/a>. I had no
\nInternet connection for over a day while I travelled; in fact I don’t
\nhave one right now, as I type this — I plan to post it later, once I
\nget to the conference center, where there’s a wireless connection.
\n[update: I posted it]<\/i><\/p>\n

I’m sure that many people have written about this before. Having
\nno Internet connection made me feel like a lost cyborg<\/a>, I have to
\nadmit—I’m so used to looking things up, surfing when I get
\nbored, catching my daily news and comics—It was like the rushing
\nand murmur of humanity that surrounds me had gone silent, and my eyes
\nand ears had been cut off from the larger world. My horizon shrank
\ndown to what I could physically see and hear, which for most of that
\ntime was either an airport terminal or a small section of an airplane
\ncabin that faded out beyond the British engineer on my left and the
\nsleeping Japanese guy on my right. Plus in-flight entertainment.<\/p>\n

It was meditative.<\/p>\n

I was forced to deal with the noise and chaos in my mind myself,
\nrather than being able to look outward for stimulation and a sense of
\norder. At the time, it was unpleasant. Claustrophobic, itchy,
\nboring. When a clamor arose inside me, instead of turning to a louder
\nclamor from outside to drown it out, I had to listen. Now I’m glad
\nthat I did it. I didn’t take a book, I didn’t read the in-flight
\nmagazine. I did<\/i> watch a movie, The
\nNew World<\/a>, an intense, scenic piece about Jamestown and
\nCapt. Smith and the Indian Princess whose name I can’t remember,
\nbecause I don’t have the Internet as I write this. It was actually
\ncontemplative as well. And I peeked at the cartoons (The Family Guy,
\nfor example) silently playing on DVD on the British Engineer’s laptop
\nto my left. I was grateful to not hear the soundtrack—he had on
\nheadphones—it looked even noisier<\/i> than I was interested
\nin hearing.<\/p>\n

And I had a Japanese phrase book. While useful and interesting, it
\ndidn’t hold my attention (sleepy and jet laggy) for more than a few
\nminutes at a time.<\/p>\n

So I got to really think. It was good. We’re supposed to meditate<\/a>, after all. Regularly. Which I suppose means more than once
\nevery few months, in an ideal world.<\/p>\n

\n
Bring thyself to account each day, ere thou art
\nsummoned to a reckoning. For death, unheralded, shall come upon thee,
\nand thou shalt be called to give account for thy
\ndeeds.<\/i><\/div>\n
—Bahá’u’lláh<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Memorization: for when you don’t have the Internet.<\/p>\n

I thought about my family, my children, my relationship with
\nBahiyyih, my service to the Bahá’í community and to
\nhumanity (or the lack of it), my daily habits and patterns. Basic
\nstuff.<\/p>\n

I’ll have to remember to do it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I’m in Tokyo for a conference for work. I had no Internet connection for over a day while I travelled; in fact I don’t have one right now, as I type this — I plan to post it later, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neolefty.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}