Daily Prompt: Bloggers, unplugged.

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Sometimes, we all need a break from these little glowing boxes. How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us UNPLUGGED.

The Garden grill

I think this bar-b-q would have been better left unplugged, instead of subjecting my garden and the surroundings to a smoke screen. This box never glowed, it just went up in smoke.

I live on a plug it seems. Computers were a good instrument for a business to survive. Instead of receiving an order by post and sending the confirmation, you were online. In five minutes the deal was done. Such became modern plugged in life. It moved fast, no time to think about it, just do it. At the end of a working day my brain was glad to be unplugged, but was it?

Of course not, it arrived to somewhere called home. I was not a blogging masterpiece at this time, but the seed had been planted. I discovered sites where I could write according to a photo or a subject and jumped on the band wagon. Perhaps this temptation should have been stifled at birth, just carry on baking cakes, knitting, housewifely hobbies in between.

By the time I was retired, I was hooked and had time for the dreaded, habit forming, brain dead Facebook and all its games and silly comments. I know, I should have unplugged before I even did the “online” operation, but it seems I am a sucker for punishiment.

Then we have phase two, the iphone and its brothers and sisters. It is important to be available twenty-four hours a day, you never know. It might be that your president or queen wants to speak to you. Your children will be home late from school, husband has to stay later at work, a life important contract is to be completed and above all he wants to make sure that the food is not cold or overcooked when he arrives home. There is no problem, when all these delays occur, you have more time to complete a field of wheat on Farmville, carry on cooking in your Café World, and buy another house and furniture in Yoville. The world of Zynga games in Facebook is infinite.

One day you wake up, “I want my Life Back” is emblazoned across your brain cells. I refuse to let life be dictated by an imaginary world of people proclaiming their love for their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, dogs and cats (not forgetting Jesus). I no longer want to worry when I sleep in the evening whether my crops have grown and ready for harvesting in Farmville or whether my goals have been completed in my fictitious restaurant. I will leave, well almost. I took the necessary steps I left all my games. I was never someone to love everyone in any case. I was cured. My fields are now lying idle, the stoves in my restaurant are no longer cooking, and my house in Yoville is a ruin. Almost.

WordPress suggested make your own little home in Facebook which I did; a comfortable solution. I no longer care about the 800 colleagues I have in Facebook, there is only an elite invited in my little plugged-in world. If you want me, you know where to find me.

I am now “only” plugged in when and where I want to be. It is my choice and not Mark Zuckerberg’s choice. I wonder if he is sometimes unplugged?

What did I do to make this happen? I made a decision and do what I want to do and not what I have to do. As I am typing this I have a Facebook tab open on my screen, just in case and my iPhone lays on the table next to me – you never know.

By the way, does everyone else get these adverts for holidays in Russia as the first on the daily prompt, that has absolutely nothing to do with the subject. Just wondering? Is this spamming, or pehaps this is a clue to being plugged.

Daily Prompt: Bloggers, unplugged

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29 thoughts on “Daily Prompt: Bloggers, unplugged.”

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awlscribe

08/10/2013 at 16:34

I love your comment about the Russian! I think that one’s plugged in to every daily prompt – prob a spambot or something that seriously needs to be.. unplugged. 😉

But I second the rest of your musings on being (un)plugged. The way it is, it’s just not possible. I too have my iphone beside me now and FB in another tab lol..

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carrico

08/10/2013 at 16:51

Yep, guess Putin’s not got anything better to do these days.
In other words, you can take it or leave it, this glowing little rectangle. Excellent.

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Some Guy On The Web

08/10/2013 at 17:05

The choice will always exist.

I remove the “russians” from my tracks and pings. I noticed them a couple of weeks ago. Usually in the top 1,2,3 spots. I let them be. I don’t care if this is how they spread the love they have for their little corner of heaven, utopia, or whatever they want to call it. I just don’t track or ping them anymore.

I can smell that BBQ from here….

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- angloswiss
  
  08/10/2013 at 19:00
  
  I did the same, I exclude them from my Pingbacks. We could smell the BBQ as well, that is the smoke. I don’t think she ever got around to actually grilling anything.
  
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- carrico
  
  09/10/2013 at 13:57
  
  What exactly is a ‘ping’? I think the Ukraine scenery is pretty cool, young lasses included.
  
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  - Some Guy On The Web
    
    09/10/2013 at 15:24
    
    A ping is sort of like a “marker” of sorts. An “I was here” token. The “russians” keeps adding their names to the list of entries on the Daily Prompt, but they are not really participating. They are only using it to promote their lovely little town. Which is fine to do, just don’t JUST do that. At least participate. A little.
    
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    - carrico
      
      09/10/2013 at 17:18
      
      kind of “I came/saw/conquered”? Ping, ping, ping. Hmmmm.
      
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      - Some Guy On The Web
        
        09/10/2013 at 19:18
        
        More like…
        
        “I was here. Now come visit me.”
        
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      - carrico
        
        10/10/2013 at 03:35
        
        Far too tidy in der Schweitz. Let’s here it for chaos!
        
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Teepee12

08/10/2013 at 17:21

Sometimes, I am not sure where I end and the computers begin. I believe I will never die. I will simply be absorbed into my hard drive and live on as a cyber ghost 🙂 Great post. Thanks!

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- angloswiss
  
  08/10/2013 at 19:11
  
  One thing is sure, no-one I know will think about deleting my blogs, as most of them do not know how or that they actually exist (except for Mr. Swiss and he is a few years older than me), meaning that I will still be hanging around in the cyberworld.
  
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Danny James

08/10/2013 at 19:35

Well said.

DJ

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imsupersaiyan

08/10/2013 at 20:16

FACEBOOK IS OVERRATED! DELETE IT AND BE FREE 😀
Or don’t. I think I’m the only crazy one doing things like that.

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- angloswiss
  
  08/10/2013 at 20:21
  
  Facebook is ok, no problem. Just a site like many others.
  
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Inside the Mind of Isadora

08/10/2013 at 20:27

I’m not a big fan of Facebook. It seems like it’s all about bragging about vacations or grandkids with pix’s. I would much rather visit blogger who have wonderful posts.
Your post here on unplugged is perfect for the challenge.
Isadora
p.s.
Thanks for the ping back. I really appreciate it.

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completelydisappear

09/10/2013 at 03:04

I felt really great when I decided to unplug myself from all the Facebook games I participated in. It was like I could taste a sweetness of freedom. No need to care when the crops would die or my cooked food would spoil.

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Conversations with Yolandi

09/10/2013 at 07:34

http://conversationswithyolandi.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/the-unplugged-version/

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znjavid

09/10/2013 at 12:24

I wonder if the Russians are reading this. Haha!! Great post.

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Rob's Surf Report

09/10/2013 at 19:02

Amen to all of that. When I stopped doing Facebook I suddenly found more time to either blog or do things in the real world. Your collection of ‘villes may be a ghost town now, but as long as you’re happy, who can say that’s bad?

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- carrico
  
  10/10/2013 at 03:37
  
  Ja, get ‘faced.’
  
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