We have been contemplating a move. Away from the city (such as it is), away from the home(stead) we have been building, away to a place where we have full control over our choices and focuses.
We’ve spent many hours in conversation discussing what that looks like.
We’ve esoterically dug in and contemplated everything from “what does our land look like?” in the new situation to “what does clothing look like?”
These have been useful investigations. Along the way, we’ve discovered, we have less actual need for internet use than we though.
For example, we could choose to be disciplined and turn off wireless access throughout the house. This would force us to focus on things that are essential, or at least force us to be more present in certain activities. (I’m cheating a bit as I write this. I’m looking over the valley and connecting to my phone’s tethered hotspot. However, this forces me to be much more judicious about my internet usage. I don’t want to pay for extraneous data, so I have very few tabs open, and I’m not streaming music on youtube in the background.)
We can also choose to only use phones and internet in one room of the house. Although this may make us a bit slow to respond to things, it allows us to be free throughout the house and the yard to be present.
We came to a conclusion during an family home evening a few weeks ago that one of the main purposes of life is to learn to remove noise. (Noise is defined as anything that keeps you from focusing on your connection to the divine.)
Thus noise could be actual noise–spending too much time listening to podcasts, audiobooks, music, while working or in the garden. (This could at some points be enhanced by certain books or talks; however, even the best things written (interpreted by others) do not compare to direct communication with the divine.)
So we’re trending toward simplicity. We don’t entirely know what the path will look like.
And at the moment, the simplest thing to do is not to move yet. It’s to begin to practice simplicity now, and tone down the things we can control, so when things we can’t begin to overwhelm us, the need to actually move will become so overpowering that it will make sense.