Deprivation study

I’m participating in a test at work where we go without using paper for one week.
No printing. No notetaking by hand. No agendas handed out at meetings. No pre-read decks.
Corporate psychologists warn that some might see you as “unprepared’ for not having an information binder at the ready. Credibility can easily be established and torn down by simple visual cues such as a notepad or a binder.
So that’s out the door…
This change is hard!
It may be more difficult for me than others, for I find great joy in the tactile presence of paper. Of lists to myself of tasks to complete, all laddering up to a mightier cause. It’s a Kanban system of the mind, one that enables me to keep track of my priorities and feel my way through projects. I rearrange pieces of paper that symbolize subsequent tasks to form a timeline. I ingest the critical path like it’s my lunch, and therefore can recite it backwards and forward to anybody who asks. Sounds hippy dippy and ridiculous, but trust me: I make it work! I’ve accomplished some pretty Herculean things with my methods, and the important thing is that they work for my brain chemistry.
The artist in me appreciates and loves the symmetry of lists. The satisfaction of a square box with a tidy checkmark trapped inside. The look of my handwriting flowing over the page (I write like Thomas Jefferson; not Jessica Wakefield). I enjoy the substantial feel of a well-made deck that sings to me with its colorful, strategically-placed graphics. I like the nearly-imperceptible scratch of my pen on paper, streaming my thoughts as I work toward whatever ambitious goals lay before me.
Occasionally, I even doodle in the margins. Study after study will tell you that doodling actually unlocks the creative, problem-solving mind. So don’t slap that little kid’s wrist who insists on filling his margins with shapes.
Call me silly.
Another deprivation study is going on in our house.
I walked out the door today and nearly tripped over the gigantic half of a tree that had fallen in our yard. Narrowly missing our roof and my shiny new Acura, it did a number on our power line. I left for the day, figuring that it would get worked out by the curly-haired ruffian boy who was still sleeping upstairs.
And it did…though it’s not over yet.
To the tune of $1,300 we now have a better electrical conduit on the side of our house and one less rotten tree in our yard.
The electrical company, of course, has no interest in reconnecting our power, so we are forced to wait until some city inspector visits our street and decides our improvements are up to code, enters our information into a system, which then feeds the electric company 24 hours later. The lengths to which all parties involved (except Jonny, the arborists, and the electrician) go to NOT do their jobs inspire awe. If I put that much effort into DOING my job, I’d be CEO in, like, 25 months.
Someone once told me “Mandy, you’re too motivated for government work.”
Watch out, Al Carey.
While I bide my time and wait for Al to figure out that I’m next in line, I enjoy the quiet of my front porch, free from a light or sound except crickets. No whir of the air conditioning. No internet streaming on my laptop. Just me and my leftover emails from 6 o’clock.
If the battery dies I’m not concerned. I’m going in at 5 tomorrow anyway to catch up on the world that I missed by not being on the internet for 12 hours. It disgusts me at the same time I accept that it is the parameters of a life I chose.
But for the moment, I’m pretty analog.
I ate my dinner by candlelight and now stroke my kitty’s coat on a street that has too small a tax base to afford streetlights. All I see is the grey-rose glow of the Metromess above the trees.
The power may be on by Wednesday…but knowing the ambitions of certain city/utility employees to avoid doing any work…I’ll give it ‘till Thursday.
In the meantime we are trying not to open the fridge and are periodically borrowing power from the neighbors to keep the farmshare cold. The hot water doesn't work, but since I hate showering and we don’t do dishes every night, it’s no big deal.
I feel strangely disconnected from the world; yet tuned in at the same time. Perhaps because I just finished Dean Koontz’s The Taking, I am reminded that we are only a few clicks removed from a civilization without all the trappings of…well…civilization. This is what my parents feel nearly every night as they watch the moon rise over the pasture and enjoy their late dinner (“the rich eat late,” Mom used to joke). Given that they only come inside when the sun goes down, my parents have a martini around 10 and dine around 11, tucking into bed shortly thereafter. The Europeans usually enjoy a walk after dinner to settle their meal, but Mom and Dad eat light, and couple that with the monumental list of tasks one needs to check off to keep a ranch running; they would rather head to bed to greet the next day’s work.
Thus it goes on, day after day. So focused are they on maintaining the ranch that sometimes world events have passed them by. On September 12, 2001, Mom and Dad got a telephone call from a neighbor (we use the term loosely for anyone within a 20 mile radius), inquiring if they’d heard what happened on the East Coast. Their radio had gone out a few days prior, and they had simply carried on with their week, unaware of the watering eyes the world had turned to New York City, DC, and Pennsylvania.
While some might argue it irresponsible, ignorant, or just plain strange; I think that it’s rather fortunate of them. By choosing to partake in the modern media diet, they seldom miss out on anything substantial, and miss instead a whole lot of fluff.
Hell, someone will call if they need to.
PS: It’s amazing how easily we both transitioned to this darkened existence. Jonny just leaned over and said “It boggles the mind that this is how we both grew up. It’s normal to us. But to some people it would be absolutely catastrophic. I’m playing solitaire on my phone, and twenty years ago I would have been playing with a real deck of cards. That’s the only difference. And my Mom and Dad would have been drinking Buckhorn Beer on the porch.”