Lent 2025

No Streaming

wednesday, march fifth - saturday, april nineteenth

On Wednesday March 5th, I will be giving up Streaming for lent. I will be disallowing myself from engaging in any online media clips, and I will only be allowed to listen to music I own or borrow. My discman is in terrible condition and when I get enough money I will be purchasing a newer discman. I will allow myself to rip CDs to mp3, both so I do not have to listen to CD skips all day, but also so I can cultivate a more intentional digital library.

I want to catalog the rules, create an FAQ, and include a journal of my journey as it continues. Please stay tuned for future updates

Rules

• Absolutely no engagment with visual streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Max, Youtube etc.)
• Absolutely no engagement with audio streaming sources (spotify, youtube, etc.)
• Absolutely no engagement with any videos or audio streamed through the internet. I will be installing a video blocking extention onto all devices I use.
• All music listening must be owned or borrowed in a physical context. my reliance on soulseek is practically the same as streaming in my eyes.
• I am allowed to check out DVDs and CDs from the library and rip / use them.
• CDs, Cassettes, and Vinyl Records can be ripped to mp3 and listened to on my mp3 player, but most of the time picking up my walkman will be more convenient.
• Podcasts can be listened to and downloaded through podcast aggregators (gPodder) but I will be reading the bare rss feed and extracting the audio files that way. I will have to rebuild my podcast library for lent
• I am deleting my scattered ebook library and I will only be allowed to use physical books.

FAQ

• why? You're being ridiculous.
I truly feel that the instant accessibility of streaming has led to my engagement with art to become a lot less intentional. I think that the way I watch television, the way I skip youtube videos, and especially the way I listen to music has become about what can most easily grab my attention in the given moment. There are so many choices in this world, and I want to limit them and free myself from my digital vices of inattentivity. When pondering my vices in preparation for Lent, I realize that this digital world and my focus are two of my biggest issues.
• What about Youtube TV?
Ah. Truly the ultimate fringe. I am not allowed to use youtube TV. I am allowed to use traditional cable television and antannae, but Youtube TV is too closeley related to streaming for me to be able to use it without feeling like I am cheating.
• What about video games?
the only video game I regularly play is Fortnite. I am not allowed to have Game Pass or any service similar to it, and by extention I cannot use xbox cloud gaming. Given the massive console companies have gotten rid of discs, some games will have to be discfree, but my house is now equipped with both an Xbox 360 and a Wii, 70 combined discs, so I think that I will be just fine. I also learned my library has video games, and let me tell you I have been eyeing Grease the video game for a week or so now.
• What about live sports?
Antanna TV. If it isn't availible there, I have to go to a sports bar or something. I can also listen to the radio, so radio broadcasts of sports (not streamed from the internet, of course) will come in clutch.

In retrospect, this is the really depressing thing about this challenge is that I have recently gotten really into hockey, and there is absolutely no way I will be able to engage with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the same way. I also adore March Madness and I am going to have to spend a lot of time in the sports bar during the round of sixty four. but what can you do? I like the core idea too much to turn back now.
• What are you going to do when people around you are streaming music and video?
If it is realistically out of my control, then I will relinquish control. I cannot go into every social space and say "hey guys, sorry, you have to turn off spotify, I am doing a lenten sacrifice and this goes against it." The important thing is that I do what I can in my control, and avoid as much streaming as humanly possible.

At the end of the day, this challenge was brought upon by my feelings of reliance towards streaming, and if I am doing everything in my control to avoid it, then I am surely engaging with music and television in a more conscious way, which is the self improvement that I am trying to guide myself towards. If I end up in a car using spotify or a house playing youtube, as long as I do not request it and I do all I can reasonably do without social exclusion to avoid it, that is a win for me.
• Some people say that there are forty days and nights in lent, and that you can skip your lenten sacrifice on each Sunday during lent, will you be doing that?
absolutely not! I am prefacing this by saying I do not want to question anyones religious commitments by saying this, and this is more of my opinion on habit building than sacrifice to God. I cannot understand giving up something for 7 weeks and then cheat for 15% of it. I think there is something about accidentally giving into the temptation of turning on your sacrifice, but it is simply just not how I am wired. Whether it is ambient september or one of the other challenges I give myself, I really just love adding unnececary limitations to how I interact with the world.
• Will you be giving up meat on fridays?
I dont know. I want to, but frankly my pallette is relatively small and I feel like I would probably not be very nutritionally bound if I took the meat out of my diet. But at the same time, forcing myself to give something up on Friday's could bode well. Keep updated with this and I will make a decision by next week.
• Are you even religious? Is this just a game to you?
I dont know sorta, lowkey yes.

In previous years, I have straight up treated it like a game. People would ask about it and I would say "I am not Catholic I just like a challenge." I was baptized Greek Orthodox before I was cognizant of this world and I have never been to church outside of funerals. I have an on and off interest in Christianity, mostly as a tool for literature and academic study. Recently I have been thinking more about God because I definitely believe in an omnipresent higher power, I see him in Calculus and Nature and Determinism and Love. One of my new years resolutions is to cover-to-cover finish the Bible, and during Lent I would like to spend each Sunday doing a really in depth study, up to an hour of Bible readings. This lent is different because while to me ascetic goals are a kind of game to me, I am actually much more interested in the religious side of things.
• What did you do for previous years?
2022: Swearing
2023: Looking up Information on the Internet
2024: Lentphone (Only iMessage, iPhone, and Settings on my smartphone)

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