The Bright Side of Going Dark

by Kelly Harms

“Where are we going,” she corrects. “Now that you’re detached from your digital tether, we’re going camping.” “What now?” “Surely you must have heard of it, in all your Patagonia-sponsored activities.”

Speaking metaphorically, if you never download the program that everyone else is using, you never have to run updates.

My mom can do this: she can grieve, she can take as long as she needs. She never feels that push, push, push to move on.

it’s just the same with the tech. She doesn’t need to know about Pictey because she didn’t need to know about Instagram because she didn’t need to know about Facebook or Myspace or Friendster or Napster. All that bandwidth is still free for camping, planting turnips, reading mysteries, loving her children.

That’s her secret: if you are unwilling to reshape yourself every time the times change, you are, effectively, timeless.

There are things you know you want in your life, that you know are good and right and true the moment you realize they exist. Things that you can only miss if you’re not paying attention.