I’m back, I’m back… It’s been a long two computer-less, off-line weeks and a half… Everything happened, computer-wise and otherwise.

Talks to prepare, the new readings of Il Palcoscenico di Carta/The Paper Stage, frantic rehearsals for Shakespeare in Words, and whatnot. Surprisingly, I even managed to squeeze in some writing… Or perhaps not so very surprisingly, after all. It goes with being offline.

Not for the first time, I got to experience again what it was like to live without the Internet. It happens, now and then – what with computers being machines with a limited span of life, and mine in particular having a tendency to die in operatic fashion – protracted and dramatic… And every time, I discover the dilemma again: for all the wonderful things the Net allows me to do, for all the otherwise unthinkable doors it opens, it also swallows unconscionable amounts of time. But on the other hand, for all the time it swallows, the Net is absolutely essential for purposes of both fun and profit – and also endlessly interesting as a tool for learning and discovery…

Which makes my old musings about net-less weeks (let alone months) quite lackadaisical, in a come-live-with-me-ish way. And in fact, when did I ever try to  go offline unless forced to do it by some technological catastrophe? Oh yes, I tell myself that I might want and manage to go offline for the occasional writing sprint – but  I actually did it once in the last three years. And after all, that’s not even the point. It dawns on me that what I need is, rather than some yearly pocket of netlessness, some year-long kind of discipline… I have to spend less time on the Net – it’s as simple as that.

Oh yes, simple  except that it strikes me as even trickier than the Netless Week, because I know myself… On the other hand, this is not something I can safely keep at some hazy distance – next month, next summer, in September, just after Christmas, as soon as I’ve finished this translation… Well, I can – and probably will – but it should be harder to assuage my conscience with half-plausible excuses. And after all, guilt tends to work with me.

Ah well, nothing like trying, is there? I’ll let you know.