I’ve Gone From Liberated to Debilitated, and My Urge to Be Rehabilitated Is Slowly Being Eliminated

Do me, and yourself, a favor and print this piece to read it. Really. Print it off. Like the old days. And read it. Read read it, instead of simply scanning it. Take the time; put in the energy. Now vs. the never-arriving later.

I’ve even made a handy link you can use to display the piece as an attractive PDF. If I really had my way I’d print it off myself and mail it to you — or, better yet, put it right in your hands as you were sitting quietly, all alone and temporarily technology-free. No distractions.

Whether you ultimately like or agree with what I say is irrelevant. Just print the piece. Trust me on this one. Print it, then sit down to read it. Grab a cup of coffee while you’re at it. Start a fire in the fireplace. Get away from anything that rings, pings, or dings. Whatever you’re normally loaded down by when you’re reading a blog post … or trying to … or psyching yourself up to … make it be gone. Just this once.

***

Tough, isn’t it. Not quite impossible, perhaps, but uncomfortably close.

How long did it take you? Hours? Days? Months? Maybe — probably — you never got there at all.

You’re not alone.

***

I remember when the Internet was born. Cute little buggar. At first.

It was in 1993, during the midpoint of my first Real Job after college. I was an editor for a newsletter publishing company in Madison, Wisconsin. Every two weeks I had to come up with six pages of material for a newsletter geared to student services professionals (residence hall staffers, counselors, advisors, and the like) at colleges and universities across the United States.

My job was to find and then share relevant news items from campuses around the country. The sharing part was easy. The finding part — well, not so much. It was a challenge. There was no Google News. There was no Google. There was no anything except physical, printed publications — newspapers, magazines, other newsletters. And there was no way to curate except to find and skim these publications, manually, in a semi-desperate, fully inefficient effort to uncover relevant articles and, ala Reader’s Digest, summarize them so that they could be shared in the pages of my newsletter. It was a daily diet of almost all chaff and precious little wheat.

When I started this gig in late 1991, the preferred method involved going through the barrage of college student newspapers that came through our doors every week. We (the company) had subscriptions to them all; we paid actual money to have them sent to us in the actual mail on actual paper with actual ink. Then my fellow editors and I would actually read them — though scan would be a more accurate way of saying it — to find material for our own newsletters, all of which targeted higher education audiences.

The advantage of college newspapers was that at least you could count on seeing lots of college news and stories, which is what we editors needed, after all. We got way more from subscribing to college newspapers than we would have subscribing to, say, a bunch of regular daily newspapers from various cities around the U.S. There was always something we could and would end up writing about for our own newsletters.

But there was a downside: Despite the marketing department’s claim that we editors “gleaned” news and information from “hundreds” of publications, we really were only able to read — let alone pay subscription fees for — perhaps three dozen (at best) college newspapers. We read other stuff too — publications similar to our own, for starters, as well as publications from professional organizations related to various constituencies within higher ed. But the editorial universe we were covering was actually relatively small. Way bigger than that of the average, normal human being at the time, but relatively small nonetheless.

As a result, we had a tendency to share relevant news and information not from all the college campuses around the U.S. but, rather, disproportionately from certain schools: the schools whose student newspapers were coming through our door. In many ways we couldn’t help it, and readers couldn’t expect more. We did the best we could with what we had while dealing with the constant frustration that there was much more out there that we didn’t have, and couldn’t get, unless we were lucky enough to see it mentioned in our own local daily newspapers.

I got so tired of finding things in the Indiana Daily Student and The Daily Tar Heel of the University of North Carolina and, for some odd reason, The Daily Nexus of the University of California-Santa Barbara. Readers did too, and occasionally they would let us hear about it — in notes accompanying their subscription cancellations.

So one day I decided to do something about it all on my own. On a whim, I went to the nearby Memorial Library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to see if I could find more newspapers there.

And I did!

Suddenly I had the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel at my beckon call, and The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times and a couple dozen others. Presumably, the papers were all there because the university’s students and faculty come from all over the country and around the world. I didn’t care why the papers were there; I cared that they were there. I had hit the editorial mother lode. My problems were solved.

Except that they weren’t.

Yep, I got more material for my newsletter all right. Eventually. Very eventually. But to get it I had to scour even more physical newspapers, digging my way through and out of even more chaff than I had been before. And, as an added bonus, I got to do it on my own time and my own dime, after regular working hours or on weekends. The company wasn’t going to stand in my way.

I still remember the ink that was all over my fingers when I was done with a marathon, um, gleaning session at the UW. I remember the smell, and how I could feel faint streaks of black gunk on my face where I had leaned on my chin with my dirty hands. I could taste newsprint. All for a few measly news items that did not involve Indiana University. It wasn’t exactly dangerous, like coal mining or auto racing, and it definitely wasn’t glamorous. It just was. It was the way it was, the best it was likely going to be.

Until the Internet happened by.

***

My first Internet experience did not involve the World Wide Web (which is what everyone called the web at the time) but, rather, a precursor called Gopher, developed by the University of Minnesota.

Using Gopher, you could dig into various files on a remote computer! Not your computer; someone else’s, somewhere else! Colleges and universities were among the early adopters. So one day, I somehow figured out that I could use Gopher to find, say, news releases from colleges and universities around the U.S.! There were even some college newspapers using Gopher, to post their daily news as well as the archives!

Holy headline, Batman!

My life as an editor was about to be not only changed, but revolutionized. No more reading physical publications. Now, the news I needed was at my fingertips. Click, click, click — poof: news item from the University of Virginia. Click, click, click — poof: news item from Oregon State University. And it only got better as Gopher faded into oblivion in favor of the World Wide Web and its hyperlinks.

Soon I didn’t have to read anymore. Read, schmead. I had already been consigned to skimming to begin with, and now I could surf and skim at the same time, virtually wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, however I wanted. Free. Or so it appeared.

I left my job as an editor in Madison in 1995 to go out on my own as a freelance writer and, later, publisher of my own national newsletter. All I needed was the Internet, really, and I had it. I could surf for whatever I might need. And when Google and, a bit later, Google News came along, even my surfing days could (and did) end. Why surf willy-nilly when you can just type, say, “introvert” into the Google News search bar and have hundreds of recent introvert-related articles in front of your face faster than it takes to write 10 words about the sheer wonder of it all?

My problems were solved once again. They really were. No joke.

But there was a price to be paid. A big one. And I am only just now beginning to realize what it has all cost.

***

I used to love the bookstore. In 2001 I could go into Barnes & Noble or Borders (RIP) or, especially, Half Price Books and feel like I had stepped into heaven itself. Books, books everywhere, and plenty of drops to drink. Magazines coming out the wazoo. I was a kid in a candy store, with the added bonus that I was in fact an adult — with money and no parental barriers — in a candy store. I loved going to the bookstore. And the books and magazines? Well, I never went home without one. Or five. Or 10. I had my own small library of knowledge at my fingertips.

Now, a trip to the bookstore — even the thought of it — merely produces anxiety and a sense of despair. I still go, largely for my kids’ sake and my wife’s sake. But it is no longer inherently enjoyable. I have to work at it and for it. All I see and, especially, experience when I get there is overwhelm. “I’ll never get to read even a tiny fraction of this stuff,” I think to myself. “Too much. Too much. Can’t … do … it.”

The racks upon racks of magazines that I once saw as opportunity now look like the Berlin Wall, and I’m afraid to climb over for fear of getting killed. There was a time when, as a writer, I wanted to contribute to these magazines, and deep down I still do want to contribute to a few of them. But I’m stopped in my tracks by the sheer volume of it all, and by a constant, demoralizing thought: “Do I really want to add to all of this noise?” What’s the point? I ask myself. Why bother?

And the books, thousands strong in their number? I can’t even really see any of them without what seems like extraordinary effort. Do I — can I — really spot one snowflake in a blizzard?

My personal library, once numbering in the hundreds, is now gone. I have one shelf of books, and I generally can’t bring myself to read even those. I’m trying to relearn, to rebuild my muscles — the way, I suppose, a hospital patient has to regain strength after surgery. But it’s slow going, and I don’t really know where I’m going. I only know that I used to go to the bookstore, buy books and magazines, and read them. I would actually buy and actually read. It was as easy as breathing. Effortless.

Until it wasn’t, and still isn’t.

***

I used to love the free email newsletters you can sign up for, especially those published by other authors and writers — people like me in a few cases, people like I aspire to be in many more. I learned about their articles, their books, their offerings that could help me in my own writing and publishing efforts.

Now, once I get past, say, two of these weekly (or twice-weekly … or thrice-weekly … or …) communiques, I’m tapped out. Too much. Too much. Can’t … do … it.

The newsletters keep coming, from sincere, well-informed, well-meaning writers, authors, and others. But, with rare exceptions, I just keep pushing past them. “Another time,” I’m forever telling myself. “Another time.” And off they go to my “Trash” folder — or, ha ha, my “To Read” folder — never to be heard from again.

The tool I once saw as my own potential opportunity to communicate with, and serve, my own readers and would-be readers now looks like just another way to not only bother them, but overwhelm them too. Company for my misery to love. Why start publishing my own weekly email newsletter when I see it not as a potential contribution but, rather, as a potential punishment, albeit unintentionally generated and delivered?

***

I used to love the web itself. Like many, I even surfed it on purpose in the beginning. Just because. Just because I could. The euphoria, though, eventually wore off, and like most people I stopped surfing just for the sake of it. That seemed pretty normal, and still does.

But now I can’t really take the Internet news and information when it comes to me, either. Too much. Too much. Can’t … do … it. I can’t take the Google News alerts on my favorite topics. I’ve at least been smart enough to not even attempt Twitter and its ilk.

And Facebook? Ugh, Facebook. Most of the time I wonder why I even have an account and bother to get on. And yet I do, and I do. I rarely actually read anything. I just mindlessly scroll, mindlessly scroll, mindlessly scroll. I enjoy seeing people’s pictures, I guess, and key people in my life — aka grandparents — enjoy seeing ours thanks to the magic of Facebook. And every so often someone posts something that really helps me, that truly makes me think differently or feel differently or behave differently or all of the above. But those are the exceptions. If I thought I had a wheat-to-chaff-ratio problem back in 1992 — well, Facebook puts it to shame.

I’m not sure I can continue to handle the irony — and the disingenuousness — of using my Facebook account to share pieces like this one with … well, who knows. But, like a lemming, I will do it anyway, hoping that what I have to say will miraculously stand out and get read. Odds are it won’t, though. Not because it’s no good, but because it will be just another wailing voice among thousands of others. I myself can’t detect anyone’s individual cry anymore, and I’m losing my ability to want to. Can I really expect someone to be able to detect mine among the cacophony and the gnashing of teeth?

***

My friend Barbara Winter publishes one of the few breaths of fresh air in what constitutes my current reading life, as it is.

Winning Ways is a newsletter geared to self-employed people like me (Barbara is fond of calling us “self-bossers” — I like that). It comes out relatively infrequently — every other month — and it’s eight no-nonsense, very-little-in-the-way-of-fancy-design pages long. The content is informative and inspiring, though I suppose you can say that about a lot of publications.

Yet Winning Ways is the only periodical I read from cover to cover, every time.

Why? Why, why, why?

Well, Barbara is my friend, and that’s a factor. And Barbara is indeed informative and inspiring. That’s a big factor too.

But there’s more to the secret sauce: Barbara is largely (though not completely) old school in this world of mine where new has gone much too far for me to take.

Winning Ways is printed on actual paper and mailed through the actual mail so that it arrives in my actual mailbox out on my actual street — and then I see it with my actual eyes after I walk out with my actual feet to pick it up with my actual hands.

When Winning Ways arrives, I hold it. I still don’t usually read it instantly. Instead I set it by my bedside. It’s actually there, present. And then I read it, all of it, perhaps in bed, perhaps at the coffee shop, perhaps while I’m waiting for my son’s Tae Kwon Do session to end. I. Read. It. Read.

Holy lifeline, Batman!

Is it any wonder that Barbara wrote this in a recent issue, in response to a reader’s question: “Is your newsletter available electronically?”

The answer is always the same: no, and it never will be.

Weirdly old-fashioned? Not at all. I love technology as much as the next person. I also know that it serves a different purpose, has a different impact.

On the other hand, I have 3-ring binders filled with every issue of Winning Ways, and I consult them regularly.

It’s easy to forget the power of tactile encounters. But there is a power in the books. letters, and publications that we touch that simply doesn’t exist when we’re merely harvesting words.

That power is magnified, almost unfathomably, when it is inevitably contrasted against the rest of today’s environment, where virtually everything else is electronic and flooding us from all directions, unabated.

Barbara has been at it with Winning Ways for about 30 years now, since 1986. That means she’s been publishing her printed-and-mailed, paid-subscription newsletter in the Internet Age the majority of the time. By all rights the Internet should have killed her — well, it! It has done the opposite. And it can’t possibly be sheer luck or blind coincidence.

***

Erosion created the Grand Canyon. I’m afraid it’s doing the same thing to me and many others. I have every bit of information I could ever need. But all I’m feeling is worn down. And empty.

Am I broken, or have I simply been broken over the years? Am I fixable? There was a time when I felt so liberated. Now I just feel debilitated. Can I be — do I really want to be — rehabilitated?

I can basically no longer see individual newspaper ads, or individual magazines on a rack, or individual emails in my box, or individual books at the bookstore. I’ve either gone blind or, more likely, my mind and my soul are protecting my heart and my psyche.

Surely the Internet alone isn’t to blame. Dealing with the flood that was my late-wife’s cancer battle — the diagnoses, the fears, the endless treatments, the procedures, the bills that couldn’t get paid, the house we fought the bank to save — didn’t help. “I’m overmatched. I’m overmatched,” I used to tearfully confide to my brother Mike. I’m wildly underestimating the impact of it all, I’m certain, and I’m even more wildly underdescribing it. I know what it’s like to get streamrolled sans Internet, too.

And yet … I’m still reachable. And I still want to reach others. I just wish it could be, wish it would be my way. Largely (though not completely) old school. Whether I’m receiving or giving.

Every once in a while in my neck of the woods (northern Minnesota), I see a solitary billboard that says something like: “Be Grateful” — simple black letters on a simple white background. Simple simple, as in couldn’t possibly be simpler.

I never miss seeing these billboards. Never. They’re impossible to miss precisely because there’s so little to see. They stand out by being less, not more. They stand out by being rare, not annoyingly abundant. They capture me by whispering, not shouting. They shine because they’re alone, not melting into a crowd.

I wish I could see more of them. And I wish I could be one of them.

That’s all the rehabilitation I could ever need.

Peter Vogt

I’m a writer. An essayist, to be more exact. I tell stories here—true stories, from my own life, in hopes they will make a positive difference in yours.

I share laughs and tears, insights and observations, frustrations and realizations, relying all the while on the storytelling wisdom of Julia Cameron, author of The Right to Write.

It is a great paradox that the more personal, focused, and specific your writing becomes, the more universally it communicates.