WHY?!=EMx+b

You know when you’re hav­ing one of those days when the inter­net is serv­ing you up deli­cious con­tent by the post­ful? I mean, you are really in the thick of it–reading all your feeds, gig­gling or maybe cry­ing. And then it hap­pens… Your inter­net goes out.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

You panic.
You keep hit­ting refresh.
You ask your roommate/co-worker/neighbor/pet/self if they are “get­ting the inter­net.“
You try and stay calm.
(It’s not work­ing.)
You are start­ing to sweat.

And it’s not like this has never hap­pened before, in fact, it hap­pens more often that you’d care to admit. BUT STILL! … and then you feel like a jerk for car­ing so much about a thing like hav­ing or not hav­ing an inter­net con­nec­tion right now.

At this point you have a few choices. You can do one or all of the fol­low­ing: a) sit there and wait for it to come back b) go unplug the modem to see if you can get it to restart c) get on the phone with your provider and get them to fix it or d) do some­thing else for a while.

The most impor­tant thing is to remem­ber is that it’s not the inter­net itself that is cre­at­ing the absence. It is what you were reading/viewing on the inter­net that is caus­ing that ter­ri­ble ache. You haven’t really lost anything.

YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT.

You could go for a walk. You could read a really great book. You could go to the library.  You could have an adven­ture. You could draw a map. You could bake a cake. You could teach your­self how to do some­thing cool. Or you could even do a cartwheel.

The inter­net was one of the many tools you use to achieve the same goal: hap­pi­ness. Maybe you could pick up a new tool for a lit­tle while.

And the best part is, even if you do some­thing else for a while it doesn’t mean that you can’t come back to the inter­net later. In fact, you might even have more fun and be bet­ter at using the inter­net then you were before the whole “los­ing the Inter­net (again)” fiasco.

Well… get­ting laid off is kindof like that.

5 Comments »

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  1. It’s not true, I can’t do a cart­wheel. ;-)

    Comment by Matthew — January 8, 2009 #

  2. I do not believe you.

    Comment by Laura — January 8, 2009 #

  3. Get­ting laid off is exactly like this. I mean, espe­cially how it feels sur­pris­ing and out-of-nowhere, even if you knew it was com­ing, it is still a shock. You start hit­ting refresh and then twit­ter­rific pops up with an error and you are like oh crap. Then ichat is bounc­ing and you know it is over. BUT IT ISN’T OVER FOREVER.

    Comment by Matthew — January 8, 2009 #

  4. And los­ing the inter­net just means los­ing that oppor­tu­nity to use spe­cific skills in a spe­cific con­text. Doing some­thing else means you are still doing, just doing differently.

    Comment by Laura — January 8, 2009 #

  5. But seri­ously, I can­not do a cart­wheel. I can do a pull up. But I can­not do a cart­wheel. THIS IS HOW LIFE IS.

    Comment by Matthew — January 8, 2009 #

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