By JT Santana | jtwb768

The question is: You have 48 hours completely alone—no phone, no obligations, no agenda. What do you actually do?

For the first thirty minutes, I would assume this was some kind of elaborate trap. Nobody needs anything? Nobody is calling? Nobody has an emergency that somehow became my emergency? There is no email beginning with, “Quick question…” that turns into a four-hour project? I would spend a respectable amount of time waiting for someone to burst through the door and announce that the experiment was over.

Then I would make coffee and sit somewhere without doing a damn thing.

No television running in the background. No social media. No news alerts informing me that humanity has found another previously undiscovered way to embarrass itself. No checking messages every six minutes to see whether somebody needs an answer. Just coffee, Zayne, and the increasingly uncomfortable realization that silence is actually pretty loud when you have spent years filling every available inch of your brain with people, projects, problems, ideas, deadlines, and things you swear you are going to get to “later.”

I would sleep until my body decided it was finished sleeping. I would eat whenever I got hungry instead of when the clock told me it was mealtime. I might take a shower at 10:00 in the morning. I might take one at 4:17 in the afternoon. I might look at the shower, acknowledge that we both know what it is capable of, and suggest that we revisit the matter tomorrow.

Clothing would become increasingly theoretical.

At some point, I would probably start writing. Not for the website. Not for an article. Not for SEO, social media, a project schedule, a series, or somebody waiting for a finished draft. I would write something nobody else was supposed to read. There is a particular freedom in putting words on paper when they do not have to educate anyone, persuade anyone, explain anything, defend anything, or become content.

I suspect the strangest part would come several hours in, when the instinct to reach for my phone kept appearing and there was no phone to reach for. That little reflex says more about modern life than most of us care to admit. We have become accustomed to filling every quiet moment before the quiet has a chance to say anything.

And Zayne would, of course, spend the entire 48 hours filing grievances.

Formal Complaint #1: Breakfast occurred three minutes later than expected.

Formal Complaint #2: Management occupied approximately 37 percent of the bed despite having no legitimate claim to that territory.

Formal Complaint #3: The phrase “You already had a treat” continues to be used without documentary evidence.

Formal Complaint #4: Management stared into the distance for twenty minutes instead of petting the dog, an obvious misuse of available hands.

By the second day, I think I would finally stop feeling like I was supposed to be doing something.

That might be the real gift of the whole experiment. Forty-eight hours without being useful, productive, reachable, informed, responsive, scheduled, or needed might remind me that a person can simply exist for a little bit.

Then the phone comes back on.

There are 73 notifications, four missed calls, nine emails marked urgent, somebody needs me to “take a quick look” at something, the country has apparently caught fire again, and Zayne is standing beside me demanding compensation for the emotional damages he suffered during my retreat.

And just like that, civilization resumes.