“What are you doing in the dark?”

Day 3: October 15, 2023
“What are you doing in the dark? You scared me,” my mother said to me this morning before turning on the light in my room, temporarily blinding me.
I clumsily tried to explain to her the challenge of this weekend and how difficult it is for us to stay below 4 kWh per day.
Probably tired of hearing my incoherent explanations, she turned off the light without saying anything.
Both my parents are 60 years old and are children of the economic boom.
Prioritizing their personal needs, they don’t have the same eco-anxiety as the younger generations.
Furthermore, in their mindsets economic reasoning always prevails over ecological considerations, and turning off the light means saving a few cents, not avoiding wasting electricity.
Fortunately, things are changing, even if too slowly.
I myself believe that I haven’t fully understood my environmental impact, but today I tried to experience it firsthand, or rather see it with my own eyes.
As mentioned yesterday, I focused my challenge on lighting, and this morning I unscrewed two out of three bulbs in the hallway and three out of four in my room.
This way, I could proportionally reduce my energy consumption every time I turned on the light upon entering those rooms.
I also think it’s important to highlight an investment my parents wisely made during the renovation of my house: they installed a Solatube in my room, a reflective tube that connects the roof to the ceiling of my room.
By doing so, especially in the summer, I can enjoy natural light even in the northernmost room of the house.

In addition to unscrewing the light bulbs, I made sure not to turn on the light in the living room while watching TV, a fairly unnecessary habit.
To read a book on the couch, I opted for a headlamp, one of those camping ones.
Of course, not all lights can be turned off: for obvious safety reasons, I preferred not to turn off the headlights of my car, although they often seem unnecessary in many situations.
Even staying indoors, some situations required turning on the light, such as dinner or breakfast: since the days are getting shorter, simply raising the roller blinds is no longer enough.
One final effort was made in sharing spaces.
Although it often happens that I isolate myself in my room after dinner, I am writing this diary entry on the living room couch, trying not to be distracted by the TV that my parents are watching at high volume.