Of course, the convenience of all this is wonderful. However, convenience is not by necessity a virtue. Sometimes ease of use can become a vice, especially when it has the effect of causing us to be plugged in to a machine 24/7 and, as is often the case, disconnected from the people around us as well as our physical surroundings. (We laugh at films like Wall-E and their depiction of human beings who have become totally alienated to everything around them, yet sometimes I think we’re not that far from being the same way.) The consequence of this is we spend inordinate amounts of time doing unnecessary things online when we could be using our time in far better ways - talking to friends, cleaning your living space, taking a walk, or actively listening to a piece of music (rather than treating it as background noise). Additionally, we lose our ability to focus on exclusively one thing without feeling either bored or guilty for our lack of productivity.

So, in trying to recreate specific uses for specific spaces, I’m going to try this semester to keep my laptop in the classroom or on my desk. I’m not going to be a legalist about it because there will, of course, be times where I need to bring it to a coffee shop to do work, but for the most part I want to leave the work in the office and allow the living room, the kitchen, or the coffee shop to be places for pleasure reading (currently Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen), relationship, and human interaction.

One change I’m going to be making this semester is to stop driving my car in town. Generally, I tend to be a lazy person who struggles to use my time well, and when I have a car, I can get anywhere in 5 or 10 minutes, which leaves me more time to sit around my apartment doing nothing. But if I have to walk everywhere, I’m forcing myself to plan ahead more, I’m cutting down on idle time (there’s a difference between free time and idle time) and I’m getting some exercise.

I also tend to be fiercely independent, which is sometimes helpful but also can make it more difficult for me to relate to others. By not driving, I’m forcing myself to be more dependent on others to get around town and I’m creating more time to be with people as we’re driving from place to place. Finally, I’m going to have to live most of my life within walking distance of my apartment, which means being more integrated into the campus, downtown Lincoln, and the Haymarket. (And the $100 I’m saving by not buying a parking permit for a lot downtown doesn’t hurt either!)

I’m still going to drive when I’m going out of town to visit friends or to the Desiring God conference this September, but otherwise I’m walking. It’s an experiment in simplicity, learning to be more intentional with my use of time and my interactions with people. We’ll see how it goes. It may flop. It might not.

Addendum: A few hours after I wrote this and put it in the que, I had my first accident. Not even kidding. If this is God’s sense of humor, it isn’t funny.