an extended meditation on presence (we also have chickens)
I'm reading back through my journal entries and blog posts for the past year, and two things stand out above all.
1. I really thought that switching to Linux/yeeting oligarch tech/etc. would protect my privacy and data security and generally free me from the broader trends in surveillance, data harvesting, AI EVERYTHING, and Capitalism Gonna Capitalism that are sucking us all out to drowning waters like a Lake Michigan rip current.
2. I was wrong.
I grew up on the lakes
(the Great ones - there are no other lakes)
and I know how to deal with a literal rip current. Clearly, however, I don't know how to swim sideways out of the metaphorical one in which we all find ourselves. I'm not sure anyone can.
The more I read about tech surveillance - about Flock and Palantir's Gotham and all of it - the more I wonder if it's possible to live an entire day of my life without being surveilled. I'm not sure it is. Short of dropping my phone in my toilet and staying in my own basement - and even then I'm not confident that *something* won't pinpoint where I am. Heck, the absence of my phone pinging cell towers or my car on the streets is itself surveillance data at this point.
Some things are certainly better. Without infinite-scroll feeds or the impulse to turn every passing thought into Consumable Social Media Content (For the Likes!(TM)), my brain is much calmer. I enjoy basic life stuff - cooking, cleaning - much more than I thought possible. I'm able to read for longer periods, which means I'm reading a lot more; I can knock off most YA novels in one sitting now on the weekends, making me better at recommending reads to students.
(Digression: I started reading Anna Karenina a couple weeks ago, and it reminds me of Bridgerton or a similar streaming series. It's structured similarly: it's a lot of rich people behaving badly, individual chapters are relatively short, and we pass from one viewpoint character to the next to keep track of multiple plots without ever really losing one. The narrator has some limited ability to tell us what each viewpoint character is thinking, but manages to be almost completely transparent otherwise. Anyway it's bloody genius and I love it.)
(Digression II: in between Anna Karenina, I also read Tyra Banks's Modelland last weekend, which is as cheesy and stupid as Anna Karenina is masterful and clever. Somehow I think I enjoyed Modelland *more* because it was such utter nonsense. Like eating a spoonful of Cool-Whip: you know it's not food but for some reason you enjoy it *because* it's not food.)
Getting rid of my home Internet connection was honestly the best life choice I've made in years. YEARS. It took some adjusting, though less than I expected. Friends and family who visit still aren't used to it. They'll suggest watching a show or want to look something up, and I'll have to explain that no, the TV is not actually hooked to the Internet; it's hooked to an external hard drive full of movies and TV series.
The gaming setup is not working as well as I had hoped. Apparently nearly all modern games and platforms require an Internet connection to work. But I've only tried to use it a couple times since I set it all up, so I also don't feel as crushed about that as I might have. Do I miss Skyrim? Kinda. Enough to get back online? Nah.
Honestly, the worst part of not having an unlimited home Internet connection is that so much software is now designed to update itself without telling you first. I have a 10 GB per month hotspot allotment I use for telehealth appointments; Windows 10 trying to download Windows 11 without my knowledge or permission used the whole damn thing in one sitting. I was pretty pissed about that. Ye Olde Windows Machine is no longer allowed on the Internet and may soon become a Linux machine.
(W11 downloaded but can't install because there's not enough room on the hard drive, as it complains every time I turn on that computer now. When it does, I add a few more files to the drive. Nope. Fuck off, Windows 11. You eat enough of my time at work and I hate you.)
I consider the hotspot a mild inconvenience. Otherwise, I'm thrilled not to have home Internet. It's not sucking electricity; it's not wasting $80 per month of my money; it gives any "smart" devices in my home no way to tattle to anyone about what they do all day.
I am increasingly annoyed that "smart" is the only kind of appliance one can buy. My dishwasher has an app now. Why does a dishwasher need an app? Dishwasher has one job! It's right there in the name! (Fortunately it does not require the app to run.)
Speaking of apps: As far as possible, I have limited my phone to Sailfish-native apps or apps I find on F-Droid, where at least I can see the source code. This means I'm not touching things like insurance companies' "let us track your car and judge your driving so we can pretend to offer you a discount" apps or my dishwasher's "you don't really need this but hey there are extra settings if you're too lazy to press three buttons" app. The conference I attended last week had an app. I told them I don't have a smartphone.
I technically do have a smartphone. But more and more, the only way I can protect my privacy/security is to tell people I don't. Every time I do, I'm tempted to acquire a flip phone and *really* not have a smartphone anymore. It's just that having mobile data (and the hotspot) remains too important for basic stuff like checking bank balances and email - and I'm not willing to pay for two SIM cards/phone lines yet. We'll see if that changes.
Bottom line: Making these changes gives me a much stronger sense of groundedness in my own life, in the real world. As Ursula LeGuin writes of the Tao te Ching, "live in your body; you are your body; where else is there to go?"
At the same time, these changes make clear to me that individual changes aren't sufficient. The only way out of the broader mess is communal. And we live in an era where neoliberalism has convinced us there is no "communal." ("There is no such thing as society," said Margaret Thatcher, while running a society.) We have a long road ahead. I believe in us as a species, at least.
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