As you know from my last post, I was on vacation and while I was dealing with technology, I was also mostly unplugged, at least in a relative sense.

I contemplated the meaning of vacation and reflected on its purpose and why it can be so valuable–and so necessary–in today’s hectic world.

Life is demanding in the sense that it makes a lot of demands upon us. Work, family, and self-care are obvious requirements of life. Beyond these, the Information Age burdens us with others. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are becoming part of the fabric of life. There are expectations.

If you are not producing and posting content, you don’t remain relevant. If you are not relevant in the social media universe, what does this say about your existence?

As an author, participating in social media is now a requirement and there is constant pressure to produce content. At least, this is how I experience it–as pressure. I confess that I don’t relish it. I often imagine what it would have been like to be an author thirty years ago before the Internet. I need to rouse myself from these wistful, nostalgic reveries to come back to the present. It’s time to make public content.

It’s hard to find solitude under these conditions. There is an aspect to social media that provides cover, especially for introverts. You can participate and participate on your own terms, when you feel like being online or in the app. It might be less burdensome than an equivalent number of face-to-face contacts. However, the fact remains that social media is intrusive, often delightfully so. At the very least, it imposes expectations, not only for content but also for being responsive. I’ve lost countless “friends” on Facebook because I am just not responsive enough.

When I was away, my WiFi connections were so poor that connecting was difficult or impossible. I was, for all intents and purposes, unplugged. The fact that we can vacation–travel almost anywhere in the world except very remote locations–and find connectivity is a modern miracle. However, it deprives us of something very important–the relief that comes from being unplugged.

It may feel like a luxury to have no demands pressing upon you from embodied or electronic sources, but I believe this is more of a necessity. As a culture, we are starved for this kind of solitude and we continue down this path at our peril.

We all need–introverts and extroverts alike–to have downtime. We introverts are more sensitive to this need and are more likely to act on it. Extroverts may be unaware and yet suffer too, although not as intensively.

As a culture we need to slow down. I am not a philistine and I enjoy (mostly) and depend upon my technologies. I am also acutely aware that I have to put it away for stretches of time along with most other media. These breaks are essential for the well-being of my soul. I am reminded of the lines from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets when he said, “I said to be my soul be still …”

Can you still your soul today? What does that look like for you? Of course, mindfulness practice can provide the unplugged solace that you need. Try some today.