Longing for cybersilence

“O servants of Soney Baba sing
And thank God we are atheists
O Scorpion without your sting
O City burning through the mists!”
From Booddi Key Baal
by Bachchoo

I don’t think I am a naturally addictive person though I am often reminded that I have persistent bad habits. Nevertheless, I think I’m veering towards a fresh obsession which I can’t call an addiction yet.
I base the boast of my personality’s resistance to getting hooked on the fact that 22 years, three months four days, six hours and 17 minutes ago I gave up smoking and haven’t thought about it since!
No, seriously, what happened was that I came late in my twenties to nicotine addiction and smoked 30 a day. I thought nothing of it.
There was talk in those days between friends about brands and tastes and the difference between rolling them oneself and buying them in packs. I did both.
I switched for a time to cigars and merrily inhaled their smoke despite being told that one merely tasted their tobacco and didn’t pull in the smoke for the nicotine buzz.
Then, in the Brit spring, I began to suffer from hay fever, a malady that hadn’t affected me before. One year it became unbearable so I went to see my doctor, found that she was on leave and that a very young lady doctor had taken her place for the duration.
This doctor refused to prescribe any antihistamines, give me an injection or agree with my self-diagnosis until she had examined me.
She made a thorough job of it and finally called me over to her desk, asked me to sit down and wrote a note.
“I have referred you to Lewisham hospital for an X-ray,” she said handing me the note. “You should go today.”
“What for? I just want a hay-fever pill,” I protested.
“I think you have a diseased and collapsed lung,” she said.
“What?” I was naturally alarmed. “I think I’ve just got hay fever.” 
“I’m the doctor, you’re the patient, Mr Dhondy,” she said reading my name from her medical-note file.
“But that can be serious,” I protested.
“Yes,” she said.
“As in cancer and death,” I said.
“Yes,” she said unreassuringly.
I took a bus to the hospital, went to the X-ray department and waited for my turn. I was seen four hours later and another cheery lady doctor said I could go now.
“But the results?” 
“We’ll send them to your GP,” she said, meaning my General Practitioner.
“But I’ve got a collapsed lung!” I said. 
“I’m the doctor, you’re the patient Mr Dhondy,” she said. “You don’t have anything of the sort. Your lungs are perfectly healthy but you seem to have hay fever.”
I could have kissed her or asked her to marry me. I was so relieved, but decided that she would probably not consider either proposition attractive or within the bounds of decency, so I shook her hand, thanked her and walked to the bus stop to go to work.
I got to the upper deck of the bus where smoking was allowed and thought I’d enjoy a celebratory fag. I pulled out my cigarette packet, unwrapped it and was about to light one when I thought “What the hell are you doing Dhondy?” (I address myself by my surname when I am admonishing myself because the masters at school always used surnames in these circumstances).
I was going to throw the almost-full packet of cigarettes out of the window when a young man sitting in the seat behind said
“What are you doing?”
“I am about to throw this cigarette packet out of the window. What’s your problem are you a litter vigilante?”
“It’s a fresh packet, I just watched you unwrap it,” he said.
“So?” 
“So it’s a full pack. Don’t chuck it out give it to me,” he said.
“And what about the possibility of you developing a collapsed lung?” I asked.
He didn’t get it. I gave him the pack and he took it with muttered thanks and, from his expression, some doubts about my sanity.
That was when I stopped smoking. The prompting to reach for a cigarette became weaker as the weeks went by. I found that the secret of giving up doesn’t lie in nicotine substitutes, chewing gum, pills, hypnosis, yoga or anything other than the will to stop. If you tell yourself you’ve given it up, you leave open the idea of resumption. So one should tell oneself “it’s not something I do”. Smoking then assumes the status of, let’s say, sex with giraffes — if someone puts you up to it you say “no thanks, it’s not something I do.”
It works, or least has worked for me for 22 years three months four days, six hours and... anyway, who the hell’s counting?
So over to my confession about the new temptation. I spent two weeks in Italy recently in places where there was no mobile phone signal and no Internet connection. At first, I felt like Robinson Crusoe may have done.
But then, come Friday (geddit?) I began very gradually to appreciate the benefits of cybersilence. No creditors clamouring for their money! No unnecessary advertisements for elongating parts of my body! No photographs of friends on their tedious holidays and no relayed jokes.
After the initial anxiety about missing out on an active world and its news, this cybersilence began to appeal as the peace that passeth understanding. Getting back to where the signals were strong and all my devices were connected, I began to wonder whether the satisfaction of being incommunicado was a form of selfishness.
Once back in London the world was too much with me, but the memory of cybersilence pursued me so I’ve been trying switching off my phone for a day at a time and ignoring emails for more than a day.
I promise you it induces the sort of joy that Wordsworth felt when he saw those wretched daffodils.