I remember the early days of the internet. I belonged to many what were called ‘Bulitinboards’ and early ‘Chatrooms’. I thought, hoped that the ability to communicate with people all over the world was exciting and would lead to a healthier and happier civilization for us all … boy, was I wrong!

I tried Facebook and a few other such sites but ultimately found them to be too toxic for my sanity, their constant attempts to keep me logged into their platform. Even when I tried (several times) to delete my account, they always managed to get me to accidently click on something that reactivated it and, to this day it is still active, even though I haven’t signed in for several years…

To the point, I do use Discord to online chat with my children once a week, who are spread out all over the world… I also post my blog and read the blogs I’m subscribed to on WordPress, and will occasionally comment, though not often. But, I write most of my blogs in advance and have them published automatically, usually one per day in the early morning (my time). I generally only read my subscriptions either then or in the evening before retiring.

For my sanity’s sake, I don’t follow the Main Stream Media nor internet news outlets, nor ‘podcasts’… I do occasionally check out music and philosophical content on YouTube, but no more than a couple of times a week, and never more than half an hour to an hour for each session. I do occasionally watch a Netflix movie, but again, no more than once a week

So, I’m ‘unplugged’ most (probably 95%) of the time… How do I know when it’s time to unplug? It’s always a good time (IMHO). I almost always prefer to be out riding my Catrike, walking, pulling my compound bow (target shooting), or just sitting in my large chair composing poetry and rants on my tablet, on my lap desk (offline)…; -)

–LE – 5/31/25