The Experiment

As I told you, I didn't bring my laptop in my trip to China. The reason was that I did not want to make it cross some borders that I did not trust, specially since it wasn't really necessary. I think I did the right thing. I had to open my bag a couple of times and I don't want to think what would have happened the first time if I had had my laptop there.

At the meeting, I also decided that I would not check my e-mail. If I had bad news, I probably could not do anything and good news can wait. In fact, I only touched a computer once, when I wanted to make sure I was giving the correct answer to a question. And I did not suffer at all. While many people were glued to their laptop during the talks, worrying about one thing or the other, saying that they were working, I was able to fully concentrate on the subject at hand; or to look around or to doodle in the meeting booklet if I started to feel bored, which did not happen often. I felt free from the self-imposed slavery of having to take care of that gadget.

And, as not having my laptop with me forced me to have my talk finished before leaving, I did not even had to worry about it. A pleasure. For almost nine days!.