Reading a couple of nice posts on Lisa Notes (Where’s Your Phone Right Now?, Is Your Phone Changing You?) has inspired me to tone up my resistance to the time sink that is social media.

Thankfully I dislike Facebook (the software creeps me out and the UI is ugly) so there is little danger of my becoming addicted to it. I do like to follow blogs, but it’s always either a topic or a person I follow, so there’s no sprawling network of endless connections beckoning. Email is just part of my work. However, for me Twitter is like Heroin. I’m sure I could spend whole days surfing around Twitter. So for me “Social Media” really means Twitter.

I do use SM for a reason — to share information, to find things out, to “keep up to date”. How often do I need to login to fulfill those functions? Not really more than once or twice a day. Set a frequency and stick to it.

The mobile phone has become a ubiquitous general-purpose information and time-passing device, always “relevant”, designed to be pawed and fondled.

My main “don’ts”:

• SM should not be the first reading of the day. First reading should be on actual paper (the newspaper, magazines).
• In fact, no SM till after breakfast.
• SM should not be an on/off ramp activity (e.g. when I arriving or winding up at work)
• Don’t use the phone as general purpose life companion. Find ways to push againt this. For example, I have started wearing my old wristwatch — instead of using the phone as a kind of pocket watch.
• I should not reach for the phone when bored, or in those spare, empty moments (e.g., waiting for rice to cook). We get a daily newspaper, and weekly and monthly magazines, puzzle magazines, … there are plenty of ways to while away time that do not involve the phone. I could even read a Psalm.

I was really stimulated to embrace Lent this year. Since reading about “turn away” I have been much more mindful of where I am casting my gaze. After reading Ugochi’s two posts on masturbation (Is it sinful?, How to stop) I decided I would cut out pornography and masturbation completely. As is my wont I have monitored everything closely.

• “Turn away” has been very effective and has even affected my mood generally
• Pornography I haven’t missed at all. Odd how sometimes a habit will just fall away without a murmur.
• Keeping my hands off myself was harder, and by mid-March I was seething with lust and wondering if I could last till the end of the month, let alone Easter. However, I made it!

During Lent, the duration of 40 days seemed like a target. Now I am on the other side of it (especially perhaps as Easter had that special landmark), it feels more like a door I have walked through. I have no desire to watch pornography. I am quite horny most of the time but I don’t want to masturbate, and I feel in control of that.

I used to have pornographic sexual fantasies running in my head almost all the time. Now, they rarely pop up, and when they do they are so obviously weak echoes of habitual reflexes. My horniness and lust is undirected and kind of purely sensual.

What now?

The obvious thing would be to pounce on my wife, but I think I should take that slowly.

Lent might be a good time to review progress against my bad habits.

It’s four bad habits now. I haven’t gained a bad habit. After reading Is It Sinful to Masturbate? recently, I decided to change my attitude to masturbation (the physical act itself) and think of it as a sin and a bad habit. It obviously “goes with” the other bad habits on the list.

wearing ladies lingerie

I threw out all my clothes and things last August and I haven’t shopped or browsed since. I have turned down perfect “opportunities” to return to the indulgence. So I think this habit is behind me for the time being.

I still like the idea of it, all the things I wrote in my review of Wearing God, but I don’t want to go down that road again.

Also I should say that the “new crowd” that has emerged in the last decade — the highly politicised “trans” activists — are inadvertently helping me keep away from dressing up. I don’t like them at all: politically, psychologically or aesthetically. Part of my not wanting to get back into dressing up must be not wanting to be associated with them.

using pornography

From say the late 80s until very recently I would look at some porn almost every day. First magazines, then pictures on the internet and latterly internet video (very rarely bought videos or DVDs). Last August, as well as throwing out all the clothes, I deleted all my porn. From then till Christmas I didn’t look at anything, but this year it has been making a comeback.

I have these slumps where I am drenched in porn for a few days at a time. It can be there all the time on my phone or iPad. Sitting in the same room or even lieing in bed with my wife while she reads I might be watching porn. I created a special twitter account for it, in case I RT’d or faved some porn using my work account.

These binges last two or three days and happen two or three times a month.

The porn binges tend to happen after I haven’t masturbated for 4 or 5 days (yes I am keeping a log).

masturbating

Because of the way I watch porn, my masturbating is almost completely disjoint from my watching. I go without for as long as I can. Then when I can’t any more, I grab whatever safe quick opportunities I can — in the loo or shower at home or at work.

The way I’m working at the moment, I’m not having business trips away to visit clients, so no scope for long all-evening sessions (which in the past would incorporate watching pornography and/or wearing lingerie).

ogling women

After discovering “turn away” I feel good about making progress on this one, and this is my main focus during Lent.

This year I want to be more organised. That’s partly because of my “work” – my work is the impetus – but I’d like to be more organised in my “life” too. That is part carrot and part stick: I’m starting to feel the benefit of regular praying, and other kinds of self-management; on the other hand I fall back occasionally and it is horrible to feel out of control.

** Some habits I’d like to cultivate in 2017:

*** pray every morning and every evening

I enjoy praying, and I do pray often, but I’d like my praying to be more regular. I want to pray morning and evening as a matter of course.

I am also thinking of my mental idle times. In those times I want prayer to suggest itself to me. As well as prayer, Psalms and other Scripture, ideas or even images I’ve read in Christian social media. This will help with the habits I want to break.

*** write something every day

I am thinking of writing longhand here, although I am trying to teach myself touch-typing. I have just written a report for a client and I was shocked at how difficult I found it to write. This daily writing could be a prayer or diary, or anything really – just to practice writing coherent narrative.

I want to learn touch-typing for work, but I much prefer writing longhand (I spend most of my working day at the keyboard).

** Some habits I want to stop:

*** looking at porn

I thought I was out of that but it crept back in (or rather I crept back to it) over Christmas. It was a very nice relaxing Christmas but it did have its longeurs. The shock was how quickly it returns to being a habit. I am out of it again (now) but I want to ensure I have other resources (or “expectations”) for when I hit the same kind of boredom.

*** ogling women

I realise that with long years of looking at porn I have effectively trained myself to look at women in a certain way. Even the sound of heels tapping, a woman’s voice can put me on the alert. Again an expectation of an opportunity to see/think in a certain way.

*** mindlessly surfing twitter

I like my Christian twitter account, and I have a work-related project with twitter, but it is too easy to waste time. I want to be more purposeful when I go to twitter.