Life With No Internet

I’m writing this on a Southwest flight from Omaha to Phoenix. Southwest says they provide free WiFi, provided you sign up for one of their rewards accounts. I did so before leaving, but it appears the network is disabled for this particular flight. I say disabled, since I can still watch TV shows and movies on my device through their portal and see flight data to this flight.

I tried listening to music. Played through the rest of the song I paused on before boarding and one song after. Beyond that, nothing was cached, so my music app just started flying through tracks hoping to land on one that was already downloaded. There was nothing to work with.

So, what does one do with no internet connection? I’m leaning into my boredom and writing. I’m taking in the landscape of what I assume are the foothills in Colorado. And I’m taking the opportunity to charge my Apple Watch, since for as long as I can remember the battery on these things get smoked while traveling. It probably doesn’t help I’m running beta software as well.

I wish I had downloaded some music or books ahead of time. I’ll make sure I do so before leaving California in a couple of days. But, for now, I’ll continue staring out the window, pondering life, with no social media to doomscroll. To think this is how life just was 20–30 years ago.