This is related to MH's experience/planned experience for 30 Years and OUT.
A little over 15 months ago, I quit my job. It will make a much longer post to tell in explaining the details, so I'll omit the job quitting details other than to say qutting was part of my experience and plan for getting OUT. A little over 17 months ago, I called the cable company, cancelled service, and shortly thereafter pulled the plug - literally, on my TV. This too was part of my experience and plan for getting OUT.
Just pertaining to the TV/media aspect of trying to unplug from mainstream, in my naivete 17 months ago (actually it goes back several more months since I contemplated and planned for getting out upwards to two years before taking make these two particular leaps), I once had it in my mind that one can completly and fully unplug if and when they want to and that it is only a matter of one consciously acting on the choice, and doing it. Along the way since then, here are some of the things that I've learned, here are some of the ways in which I have been disabused of this naivete.
As to the media aspect, even though TV is one of THE primary and most visible means by which one is tethered to mainstream, it certainly is not the only one. There are also secondary, tertiary (and probably beyond) strings that keeps one attached to the mothership of the matrix. For instance, at the time I unplugged, I was in the process of getting ready to pack up and move closer to home, but was still living far away from home, alone. In the short term, there was a definite and real feeling of relief that began to occur within a week or two of unplugging the TV. The first 24 hours was the worst part of withdrawl, but for me, this quickly passed. Within a few months I also got the move behind me and was then living closer to home and family. Then I quickly realized that despite my still-unplugged TV, it is not easy to completely avoid the media. Try to imagine for a moment that being unplugged, I was blissfully ignorant of most of daily, routine, 24/7, ongoing hype and late-breaking nature of how the media keeps alive the notion that we are living under the threat of foreign-based terror. Being closer to home I naturally began to visit often with friends and family. Also try to imagine that figuratively speaking, I'm kinda the odd-ball blacksheep in the family - after all, I quit my job and unplugged my TV! :) In other words, each time I visit a friend or family member, I'm also visiting a house where there is a TV plugged in and turned on during most of the waking hours of the day :(..... which sort of brings me back to a point of question of my reality - how unplugged am I? Okay, so perhaps I slow down how often I visit family and friends..... all the better to not get eaten by the TV wolf, my dear red riding hood.... so I thought. But then I found my telephone ringing a bit more often, and yes, I seriously considered completely unplugging this particular string that connects me to the establishment, but for now I'm hanging onto the conventions of telephone...... so in a way my compromise make me ripe and eligible to get these phone calls from friends and family, people who now know I'm making a big play to get unplugged, so they just try in their own ways to help me along in this experience by calling to say "hey, I know you don't watch TV anymore, so you are probably not aware of the big story breaking on the news right now.... so let me tell you all about it!"...... sigh.
We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Translation - I continue to do what I can to unplug from the matrix, I have not waivered, my TV is still unplugged, but I'm finding the mothership has far more tentacles attached to me than I previously imagined.... and I've got a quite capable imagination..... many tentacles in addition to and beyond just the primary one's like TV and government. This has become a project.... kinda like the quest to go see marty moose except in a reverse kinda way.... one for which I won't be asking for the Tylenol at those times when it seems the quest has been sunk or sent severely off course..... I may ask for an appropriate herb or two, but no Tylenol or it's like! I've now been without health insurance for over 14 months, have not shriveled up and died..... yet, but time is still whiling away, one never knows what might be around the next corner of another day, but it IS possible to live a reasonably fulfilling life without maintaining many of the normal plugs into mainstream we've been trained to do...... I'm out, sorta, kinda, hope to stay out, hope to continue to get further out as I go along......wishe me luck :)...... and yes, many of my frends and family who now have a good idea of what I'm about these days, who I am these days, kinda look at me with head tilted a bit side ways..... like I'm some kind of alien. It is amazing how many seemingly well-meaning people are sending me newspaper clippings, web sites, and such, for information they happened upon that they thought may interest me towards the endeavor of finding a job.....ya know?.....going back to work?.... going back in?.....somewhow they do not yet fully understand that I want to be OUT..... at least until the money runs out :)