22 October 2012

Less digital clutter



Somehow, I got myself on every email list in the fucking universe.

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating. It's really more like every flash sale site email list in the universe. And most clothing store emails, too. (Note to self: Next time the cashier-girl at Old Navy asks for your email address so they can email you a receipt, taco-punch that bitch.) There are also a couple of social media sites that send me random emails that say shit like "so-and-so shared a tweet with the world" like teh twittah doesn't know that we check for new tweets every 2.38 milliseconds.

I think I get emails from every survey site in the universe, too. If not all of them, I'm sure it's the vast majority of them. Those fuckers flood my inbox with hundreds of emails a day: TAKE THIS SURVEY AND YOU WILL WIN A MANSION IN THE SWISS ALPS, GIVE YOUR OPINION AND YOU WILL WIN FREE APPLE PRODUCTS FOR LIFE,

I almost never "qualify" for those stupid fucking surveys. "We're sorry, we have already received the required number of responses from your demographic." Horseshit. How fucking many dog-owning, underemployed, living with domestic partner, 42 year old female drug addicts can there be in Uncertain fucking Texas. Oh, wait, I've met the neighbors. Never mind.

Those fucking survey emails are as annoying as those damned forwarded chain emails that warn me that if I do not forward this email to 4,365 people in the next 9.8 seconds, a ghost is going to rape my dog with a rotten cucumber tonight while I sleep. Those stupid fucking forwarded chain emails? Are why I allowed myself to forget how to log in and check my old email address. That shit used to piss me off. "Obamacare is destroying America. Now go shoot 675 undocumented immigrants and forward this email to 587 people in 3.6 seconds or you ain't American, goddammit!" Or: "Jesus loved you this much. Now forward this email to 381 people within 4.7 seconds or you do not love Jesus and you are a Muslim and a terrorist and you will be left behind to be tortured by the antichrist along with all your terrorist friends when Jesus returns to claim his chosen people!" (Don't get me wrong, I love Jesus as much as the next heathen shoe-whore, but I believe that there are better, more spiritual, more Christian ways to show my love for my Higher Power than by annoying people with emails--things like being accepting and tolerant of people who don't believe the same shit I do. More Christians need to act more like my sister and some of my Band Sisterhood who are very openly devout Christians, and just love EVERYBODY, and try to live Jesus' teachings instead of shoving them down people's throats; those are the Christians I am proud to know. I digress.) So I don't give out my email address these days, unless I am pretty fucking sure I don't have to see your disapproving chain emails 917 times a day.

So, as I am trying to move towards doing more with less inside my home, I am slowly but surely clicking that miniscule unsubscribe button hiding at the bottom of all those fucking emails.

Want to hear something really fucking batshit crazy?

I'm considering giving up my smartphone.

Don't keel over dead with a heart attack or stroke just yet. I hadn't said I was definitely going to give up my smartphone. I just said I was considering it. I mean, really, these mobile phone company assholes are raping me and I'm seriously considering going back to those old stupid phones that only talk and text.

What? You think I can't read your tweets without a smartphone? You CAN get tweets in your text messaging inbox, you know. Besides, unless wifi is turned off, the damned phone isn't using the mobile company's bandwith anyway. Even fucking McDonald's has free wifi now. And if wifi IS on, but the fucking router is down, the damned phone won't go to plan B and use the mobile company's bandwith, it just keeps trying to connect to a router that is ignoring it. (How smart does that make my smartphone? Pretty fucking stupid, if you ask me.) So why do I need a data plan? Besides, in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, the network is going to be overloaded anyway, and my I'm-not-really-so-fucking-smart-phone won't be able to do shit anyway, so why not have a talk-and-text-only zombie apocalypse phone that might be as successful as my I'm-not-really-smart-fucking phone at getting a text through? At least it will hold a charge, unlike my I'm-really-fucking-stupid-I-just-look-fucking-smart-phone that will run down its own batteries trying to communicate with a router that's fucking ignoring it.

I've already asked for an android based tablet for The Christmas. It can't be as heavy as my "I want to give everybody screen envy" laptop I just HAD to have and rarely ever use because it only weighs as much as a truckload of Sunshine's bricks. Why have multiple devices that perform the same functions? It's not like I'd need a 4G tablet, even fucking McDonald's has free wifi now. And how often do I talk on my smartphone? Let's just say that I don't even use one quarter of my minutes every month, and I have the smallest voice plan offered. I'd say it's at least worth investigating the possibilities, and it could save me a metric fucktonne of money every month.

I'm cutting down on the amount of emails I receive. It'll make it less stressful to check my email, which means that I will be more likely to actually act on those emails I like getting, like the ones from my friends and fellow Bandmates, or the ones that say "You won a prize" that really mean I won a prize, or the ones that say "you've got a comment on your blob post" (and it isn't a google-translator-english comment that makes no sense and was sent by a spammer).

When I said I was going to explore minimalism, I meant it. I'm going to examine all areas of my life and figure out where I am too overwhelmed. Digital clutter? Overwhelms me. The clutter in my food cupboards? Overwhelms me. The clutter in my bathroom cabinet? Overwhelms me. The clutter in the trunk of my Honda? Used to overwhelm me when it lived inside my house. Now it just sits there, waiting for me to make the trek into town so that I can give it to someone who can use it.

I'm tired of the clutter. I'm tired of the overload. I'm tired of the non-stop messaging that bombards me from every possible angle that attempts to seduce me with more empty promises.

I refuse to let digital clutter make me hate to check my email account. There are some of you who I love very much with whom I generally communicate via email. I refuse to let digital clutter come between us.

I'm slowly but surely clicking that miniscule unsubscribe button hiding at the bottom of all those fucking emails.

12 comments:

  1. As I sit here surrounded by the clutter storm that is my desk, I'm impressed by your serious commitment to minimalism. I'm also wishing you could come over and help me organize my desk. Go Cindy!

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    1. My desk is the landing zone for all things in transition and all things not otherwise classified. Someday i hope to clear it the hell up.

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  2. Holy shitballs, you have me peeing my pantaloons over here!
    And, according to last night's epi of the Walking Dead, no cell phones work in the Apocalypse. The other reasons are solid though. More power to ya, you're a better woman than I.

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    1. I am not better than you, just different. And NO phones work after the zombie apocalypse? I guess I better learn smoke signals from the nativr american peoples, so I can be all like "@bandbacktogether, i am #withthebanduninsured and need #bandaid. The zombies are trying to eat my brains. HALP!" But that only works if you guys know how to READ the smoke signals, huh? If you could, I'd be all "P.S. #pantsarebullshit" and y'all would be all "I like pie!"
      And that, my friend, is how the Band would survive the zombie acopalypse. Smoke signals.

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  3. You made me feel better knowing I'm not the only one who keeps get DQ'd on the surveys. I think I'm being to honest. Stupid honesty gets me nowhere nowadays. Grrr. At least you're getting the emails, I have to beg for surveys.

    I toyed with getting rid of my smartphone but I am in a contract and well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. So, um yeah...

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    1. I think my contract is up in May or so. I have until then to decide. If I want to keep my inlimited data, I cannot let the contract expire.

      Also, want my survey emails? You can have them.

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  4. I could comment on the last ten of your posts, but instead I may have to put all those comments here. So put the kettle on.

    My brother got all excited about minimalism a few years back. He sent me the link to the same site you linked to and said he was cutting back, cutting out, making do, being grateful, enjoying the moment. The reason it stunk like shit was because he was avoiding every other thing in his life, every problem, every failed relationship. He was clinging to minimalism like a junkie, and it showed. To me, it was just laughable. Sure, go ahead and get rid of all your shit. It won't make you happier. You're sad because you don't sit down and think about all the people you love and don't talk to. I don't know where he's at on that journey. I should ask. Put it on my TDL.

    You're going about it in a different way. And I'm really enjoying watching it unfold. It makes me question my own tiny space and what we jam in it. I think we're minimalists by nature (me and my husband). The kids are not on board. But, like your dog (which fucking killed me, btw), I will not force it. No, scratch that. I will. Too much shit.

    Now, riddle me this. I have exactly three drawers in my kitchen, in which to store shit. There is shit in there I could, technically, get rid of. But I need it, say, once a year. Once every other year. What do I do about that? Store it somewhere else? Toss it and improvise that once a year?

    You've inspired me to click over to the site.

    I'm sorry for hijacking your blog. :-) No, really. I'm sorry. I'll go now, before I start telling you about my digital clutter. That's a whole other kettle.

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    1. Oh, honey, you can hijack my blog anytime you like. I'm sorry your brother made "minimalism" leave a bad taste in your mouth. I do hope you enjoy The Minimalists thought-provoking site. It definitely gives one lots of shit to think about.

      Now, as for your kitchen drawers, I too have only three drawers. We have no children, so we don't cook. Which makes it easu as pie for us to not overstuff all three drawers. When we do come across a need for a specialty kitchen gadget that we won't use again for another year, we borrow it from a neighbor. We're lucky to live in a community like that, where we all gather and everybody brings a dish, and everybody is borrowing everybody else's gadgets and pots and shit. We

      We even borrowed the neighbors grill to cook a pizza one night, and have borrowed space in the fridges in the resort's non-rented homes if we needed to chill something large the night before some hoo-hah or event.
      I don't know how it is where you are, borrowing a kitchen gadget from the neighbor may not be an option. Maybe you could pack them in a box and hide them in a closet?

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  5. I love this.

    Lately I've been unsubscribing from email newsletters, and from blogs that I click to and don't really enjoy anymore. It is freeing in a big way. To lose the digital clutter, to concentrate time and attention on the things I love instead of the noise.

    I'm liking this piece of minimalism very much.

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    1. The noise deafens my spirit. Ugh. I wish I could figure out how to get my google reader to unsubscribe from those blogs I don't enjoy anymore. At least I can most of them out of my email.

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    2. When you are in the list of all the new posts, you will see the list on the left side of all the blogs you are subscribed to. Click on the blog, and it will open up the feed for just that blog (the list of posts will be from just the one blog). On the top is a drop-down menu called "feed settings" the forth option down is unsubscribe! Click away :)

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    3. Oh, thank you! #thisiswhyiloveyou

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