I sincerely hope we get back to just living. It is exhausting to note how many things (jobs, lives, hobbies) now are shared and "must" be shared on a global scale. The value of little moments is almost entirely gone, and it's disheartening. We are so focused on what we can be doing, rather than how we can be living.
I appreciate your willingness to not sugarcoat your beliefs into suggestions. Just getting after it, that's the true mark of a practical philosopher.
That shift will surely happen. Slowly but surely, people are beginning to realize their appreciation for nature and life.
I'm 20 years old. My current circumstances don't allot me much space to really experience life at the deepest level, but making that a goal in itself has made every tumultuous day another conquered trial. Also, you bring up an amazing point with Tim Ferris. It truly feels like a barrier to remain stuck in the routine of listening to advice that might hold, but eventually slides down the wall and into the bucket of sameness that plagues that particular niche. It's time to explore, for ourselves, what it means to live.
Thank you for these words. I started writing about this in 2010 with an article called ‘8 things to check besides your phone’ I also wrote this poem a few years ago:
Fantastic poem. I like the second line: “always maintain” …this fuels the FOMO so many wrestle with. It may seem like a conundrum, but I believe social media distorts true creativity. It demands too much of the content creators and keeps those consuming in a stupor. The result is individuals who create out of stress and pressure to quickly deliver…and individuals who don’t create because they sacrificed their time to a screen.
220 likes and counting, Thomas. A nerve has been struck? Also, comments on others comments, folks chatting on same shared experiences, all knowing they are in the web, kinda or a lotta stuck, twisting a little, trying to break free. I quit drinking alcohol 6 years ago. The entire lens of my life has changed. Do I look longingly at a cold beer on a hot day sometimes? Yes. But gawd, the freedom is life altering. Zoe commented she had “her mind back’. Wow! So do I. Love as always, Dad.
The alcohol quitting has been a godsend for me too… wasn’t even pursuing it that, just happened after turning down most night outs, binge eating (now I try to eat as healthy as possible), aiming for proper sleep, trying intense enough exercising daily, etc.
Alcohol suddenly started getting in the way of ALL of it: sleeping would suffer, would wake up a tired vegetable and not be able to run, would be hungrier than usual, money drained, etc.
Can’t stress enough the financial benefits. For me it compounded into a more minimal lifestyle for even more savings that put me comfortably out of danger which translates into more comfort, better sleep, better exercising, so on and so forth.
I’m confident going offline would so many more similar benefits, working on that.
I have to agree. As someone that used to be chronically online, and made a living from it, I can tell you from the other side, life is fucking glorious without it.
This is really cool. First step for me has been limiting myself to Substack and a private discord. It’s by no means unplugged, but limited.
Corpos definitely knew what they tapping into with social media, smartphones, etc. Super unethical imo. BUT, and a very big BUT, it’s up to individuals (and families with kids) to manage their lives.
but i feel like we have to walk through the fire to get through to the other side— to be burnt out, insomniac and with aching necks before we can truly appreciate life with technology. and i believe the upcoming generations will have to go through that too.
No one is having a good time being online all the time, that is true. But most people do not have a good time in the real world as well, that is why they are searching for a digital escape. When your life is good, you are very much balanced in your online time.
That's very true. I know people's real lives that are terrible and they resort to social media as an escape. As much as it's easy to get that quick distraction and as cold as this sounds, I still have to say: no matter how hard your life is, it will only get better when you face your hard life head on and do something about it even if that "something" is so little in the great big work that needs to be done to improve it. Even if it feels meaningless. Like cleaning your room, or dusting a neglected corner of the house. It's still something and eventually it will build up to the improved life or maybe it won't but atleast you feel good trying.
And I speak that from a perspective of someone living in Tanzania, middle class living off debts, with a law degree that won't get me paid more than $250 per month, whose house got flooded because of the poor roadplan that was implemented, and who's seeing the lifework of my 50+ year old parents crumble.
And also if you start a business you'll be taxed until you cry before you even make a wince of profit.
There's much more in that whole chaos that is pretty pointless to share but everything is pushing me to give up. And I let myself slip and consume social media as an escape but nothing good came out of it. I've decided to try regardless of the many odds.
Life sucks but it's not useful to dwell. It only hurts me more.
To understand good we have have reference point. The bad. That reference point of what is good and bad is where the problems occur. Social media takes away the middle ground. Creating extremes in good and. Extremes in the bad.
Years ago I heard Gary Vaynerchuck say actually something very thoughtful. He said (I paraphrase here) that social in his puberty and it needs time to grow up. I think social is about to get grown up.
Great article. Thanks! I live off the grid since 23 years, because I love to live fully, with all my senses God gave me. The earth is my home.
I sacrificed money, to stay healthy in my heart head and body. I never requet it. I stayed healthy,not sold my soul!
I watched the development in the mainstream and saw the loss of all sorts of skills, which they have to buy online now. Such a disability to think clearly and feel Joy...
That emotional numbness or overreaction has been decreased enormously. Meaninglessness killed many Souls. .
The big skills of humans is the quality, to feel real Love and peace. That you can't buy anywhere.
It's priceless.
Who is willing to surrender to the process to empty your head to give up addictions?
People love to manipulate and being manipulated. It's their false understanding of connection.
Being brainwashed and disassociated of the bodies, became standard.
Not to feel but to "know" is sexy.
It became "normal" to stay home all day. Hiding their neurosis es and social fears. Live life only for postings.
That dehumanizing development is a virus. Only a big war or/and individual diseases, can bring those lost souls back to the real juicy life.
By the way
I will stop, to help, when I see you out there in the road!
Tim Ferris pod never landed with me. Same with a lot of TED talks. At some point I started wondering, “why don’t they ever talk like, talk to, or talk about an average everyday person that might actually have some wisdom?”
What I see are two worlds, the greater “big” world and the lesser world of the normal, everyman world. People who do TED talks are in the “big” world. I hate to use the word “big” due to Freudian implications and the “go big or go home” cultural mumbo jumbo. “This Freud who is he? Is he a passenger?” (Titanic)
Think of it as the world portrayed in Homer’s Iliad with the parallel worlds of the gods and the world of the soldiers on the battlefield. My two cents...
How hypocritical is it that I found this by scrolling on the SS app while lying in bed first thing in the morning before I even get up and that I loved it so much that I'm gonna share it to my feed and check throughout the day to see if it gets any likes?
(Serious conundrum. When I think about writing for public consumption now, writing about the misery of technology especially, I know I will have to put it on social media [and SS is a kind of social media, especially since the advent of Notes]...)
However I think this is a case of “the knowledge that’s going to save us” from our own demise is served through the same pipes that’s serving us the poison to begin with.
My senses agree; the pendulum seems to be starting to swing back. A good sign for authors and books too… although here I am reading this on my phone. Perhaps the reality is that it settles somewhere in the middle even though I read books in paper and am writing a novel in fountain pen. Yet I’m stuck with my phone for work.
We can only hope, I definitely see the revolution happening on substack. Substack is in part why I quit all other social medias. But unfortunately I am apart of a generation that is so isolated by their screen addictions, that I am lucky if I can manage to see anyone outside interactions on the phone. (I am in my mid-20s.) No one is looking to do things out in the real world, at least no one that I know. Even more unnervingly, it is not just my fellow peers. My father, mother, and stepdad are more addicted to their phones then me! They tirelessly scroll on facebook reels, consume youtube constantly and partake in video games 24/7. God, I remember my stepdad teaching me to read as a child. In this last year he had read 4 books, while I read 32. He blames it entirely on his addiction to technology. Not to mention, I see Gen Alpha and it is utterly terrifying. They’ve had phones and tablets in their hands since they were as young as two years old. I want to be hopeful, but as much as I preach against social media and at the very least monitoring your usage, I am met with disregard. In fact on 2 different occasions where I preached the addictive nature of social media to two different friends, they continued scrolling as I spoke on the subject. We need a revolution, and I pray for one— but I don’t think it will be a revolution of the masses. The people in power are not telling us its bad because they want our money, so people don’t care. I think that those of the underground are waking up and will continue to. I always say that “thousands of people having personal revolutions is the revolution” and I think that is applicable here.
I hope you are right. I joined a martial arts class last summer (6 mos ago) after 36 years being out of practice. It’s been an amazing experience. It’s not just the physical part of getting back in shape but the mental and emotional benefits of having a new community. I’m meeting people from all walks of life - younger, older, with different jobs, different viewpoints - people I’d never have met online. We see each other on our good days and our bad days; we wonder where someone is if they didn’t show up one week - are they okay? We teach one another, patiently but also encouraging each other to push forward and learn something new, get just a little more flexible or strong each time. We care when someone has an injury and encourage to take time to heal. We do all this imperfectly and yet it all works. I hope more people will rediscover the simple joys of getting out and doing real things with other people.
I sincerely hope we get back to just living. It is exhausting to note how many things (jobs, lives, hobbies) now are shared and "must" be shared on a global scale. The value of little moments is almost entirely gone, and it's disheartening. We are so focused on what we can be doing, rather than how we can be living.
Every time I feel down or depressed it is directly connect to my screen usage. Insane.
100%
I feel the same way too, Jo. So many are losing the art of living nowadays.
Bushy is America’s plague
I appreciate your willingness to not sugarcoat your beliefs into suggestions. Just getting after it, that's the true mark of a practical philosopher.
That shift will surely happen. Slowly but surely, people are beginning to realize their appreciation for nature and life.
I'm 20 years old. My current circumstances don't allot me much space to really experience life at the deepest level, but making that a goal in itself has made every tumultuous day another conquered trial. Also, you bring up an amazing point with Tim Ferris. It truly feels like a barrier to remain stuck in the routine of listening to advice that might hold, but eventually slides down the wall and into the bucket of sameness that plagues that particular niche. It's time to explore, for ourselves, what it means to live.
Whoaa... 20 years old! You sound so wise for your age. I'm sure you'll find a way to make that intention become a reality for you. Blessings 💜
Sounds very wise indeed. I'm proud even though we don't know each other. Don't ever let go of that drive you have to learn and hold your foot down
Thanks to the both of you! I wish I had seen these earlier. Safe to say life is progressing well, slowly but surely🙏🏾
Thank you for these words. I started writing about this in 2010 with an article called ‘8 things to check besides your phone’ I also wrote this poem a few years ago:
The lizard brain game
Always maintain
Dopamine gain
Every time it’s the same
Whether the numbers
Are high or low
You sigh when they don’t grow
Check it again
When you’re on the go
Comments, cool they feel my flow
But they’re people I hardly know
Or just that creepy guy- shit oh no
Is it that I’m unpopular? Irrelevant? Old?
Not hip to the algorithm
Not crackin’ the code?
But it’s something worse
Truth be told
The lizard brain game’s
Gone out of control
Got our eyes red and cold
Starin’ at a tiny screen
Hunched over and mean
And when it’s all said and done
Or it’s all swiped & scrolled
Like smoking in the 50s
Or Wild West and gold
Were we chasing the buzz
or breaking the mold?
Livin’ the dream
or losing our soul?
Loved reading your poem! Thank you for sharing it.
Thanks Bruno💜
Fantastic poem. I like the second line: “always maintain” …this fuels the FOMO so many wrestle with. It may seem like a conundrum, but I believe social media distorts true creativity. It demands too much of the content creators and keeps those consuming in a stupor. The result is individuals who create out of stress and pressure to quickly deliver…and individuals who don’t create because they sacrificed their time to a screen.
220 likes and counting, Thomas. A nerve has been struck? Also, comments on others comments, folks chatting on same shared experiences, all knowing they are in the web, kinda or a lotta stuck, twisting a little, trying to break free. I quit drinking alcohol 6 years ago. The entire lens of my life has changed. Do I look longingly at a cold beer on a hot day sometimes? Yes. But gawd, the freedom is life altering. Zoe commented she had “her mind back’. Wow! So do I. Love as always, Dad.
The alcohol quitting has been a godsend for me too… wasn’t even pursuing it that, just happened after turning down most night outs, binge eating (now I try to eat as healthy as possible), aiming for proper sleep, trying intense enough exercising daily, etc.
Alcohol suddenly started getting in the way of ALL of it: sleeping would suffer, would wake up a tired vegetable and not be able to run, would be hungrier than usual, money drained, etc.
Can’t stress enough the financial benefits. For me it compounded into a more minimal lifestyle for even more savings that put me comfortably out of danger which translates into more comfort, better sleep, better exercising, so on and so forth.
I’m confident going offline would so many more similar benefits, working on that.
Bringing back hanging and communing at the library...
Hanging at the library is so underrated - thanks for reading Kaitlyn (:
You don’t want to know how I read this lol
I have to agree. As someone that used to be chronically online, and made a living from it, I can tell you from the other side, life is fucking glorious without it.
*as she posts on substack
Jk Jk
This is really cool. First step for me has been limiting myself to Substack and a private discord. It’s by no means unplugged, but limited.
Corpos definitely knew what they tapping into with social media, smartphones, etc. Super unethical imo. BUT, and a very big BUT, it’s up to individuals (and families with kids) to manage their lives.
but i feel like we have to walk through the fire to get through to the other side— to be burnt out, insomniac and with aching necks before we can truly appreciate life with technology. and i believe the upcoming generations will have to go through that too.
Yep. I also think the only way things will change is if things get more crazy and chaotic that some people wake up and say we have to fix this
No one is having a good time being online all the time, that is true. But most people do not have a good time in the real world as well, that is why they are searching for a digital escape. When your life is good, you are very much balanced in your online time.
That's very true. I know people's real lives that are terrible and they resort to social media as an escape. As much as it's easy to get that quick distraction and as cold as this sounds, I still have to say: no matter how hard your life is, it will only get better when you face your hard life head on and do something about it even if that "something" is so little in the great big work that needs to be done to improve it. Even if it feels meaningless. Like cleaning your room, or dusting a neglected corner of the house. It's still something and eventually it will build up to the improved life or maybe it won't but atleast you feel good trying.
And I speak that from a perspective of someone living in Tanzania, middle class living off debts, with a law degree that won't get me paid more than $250 per month, whose house got flooded because of the poor roadplan that was implemented, and who's seeing the lifework of my 50+ year old parents crumble.
And also if you start a business you'll be taxed until you cry before you even make a wince of profit.
There's much more in that whole chaos that is pretty pointless to share but everything is pushing me to give up. And I let myself slip and consume social media as an escape but nothing good came out of it. I've decided to try regardless of the many odds.
Life sucks but it's not useful to dwell. It only hurts me more.
Also true
Well said
To understand good we have have reference point. The bad. That reference point of what is good and bad is where the problems occur. Social media takes away the middle ground. Creating extremes in good and. Extremes in the bad.
So many favorite passages. This one stayed on top with a dozen close-seconds:
“Work feels good and effort is a joy. We never seem to hurry but get a lot done. Conversations come alive. Sleep is deep.”
Years ago I heard Gary Vaynerchuck say actually something very thoughtful. He said (I paraphrase here) that social in his puberty and it needs time to grow up. I think social is about to get grown up.
I hope so!
Me too. It’s puberty. Things can get weird before it gets better.
You’re right, that actually is insightful 🤣
Very well said, Maarten.
Great article. Thanks! I live off the grid since 23 years, because I love to live fully, with all my senses God gave me. The earth is my home.
I sacrificed money, to stay healthy in my heart head and body. I never requet it. I stayed healthy,not sold my soul!
I watched the development in the mainstream and saw the loss of all sorts of skills, which they have to buy online now. Such a disability to think clearly and feel Joy...
That emotional numbness or overreaction has been decreased enormously. Meaninglessness killed many Souls. .
The big skills of humans is the quality, to feel real Love and peace. That you can't buy anywhere.
It's priceless.
Who is willing to surrender to the process to empty your head to give up addictions?
People love to manipulate and being manipulated. It's their false understanding of connection.
Being brainwashed and disassociated of the bodies, became standard.
Not to feel but to "know" is sexy.
It became "normal" to stay home all day. Hiding their neurosis es and social fears. Live life only for postings.
That dehumanizing development is a virus. Only a big war or/and individual diseases, can bring those lost souls back to the real juicy life.
By the way
I will stop, to help, when I see you out there in the road!
Blessings to you!
Tim Ferris pod never landed with me. Same with a lot of TED talks. At some point I started wondering, “why don’t they ever talk like, talk to, or talk about an average everyday person that might actually have some wisdom?”
What I see are two worlds, the greater “big” world and the lesser world of the normal, everyman world. People who do TED talks are in the “big” world. I hate to use the word “big” due to Freudian implications and the “go big or go home” cultural mumbo jumbo. “This Freud who is he? Is he a passenger?” (Titanic)
Think of it as the world portrayed in Homer’s Iliad with the parallel worlds of the gods and the world of the soldiers on the battlefield. My two cents...
I wish to see more of this too, Miguel.
How hypocritical is it that I found this by scrolling on the SS app while lying in bed first thing in the morning before I even get up and that I loved it so much that I'm gonna share it to my feed and check throughout the day to see if it gets any likes?
(Serious conundrum. When I think about writing for public consumption now, writing about the misery of technology especially, I know I will have to put it on social media [and SS is a kind of social media, especially since the advent of Notes]...)
Yeah, thought that too.
However I think this is a case of “the knowledge that’s going to save us” from our own demise is served through the same pipes that’s serving us the poison to begin with.
Damn, Tommy. I felt like I just witnessed a speech and the crowd went wild.
Also, I laughed out loud at the Tokyo line. I feel seen! Hahaha.
My senses agree; the pendulum seems to be starting to swing back. A good sign for authors and books too… although here I am reading this on my phone. Perhaps the reality is that it settles somewhere in the middle even though I read books in paper and am writing a novel in fountain pen. Yet I’m stuck with my phone for work.
Ah the paradox of reading on a phone, and on what is increasingly becoming another social medium, about detaching from tech and social media.
We can only hope, I definitely see the revolution happening on substack. Substack is in part why I quit all other social medias. But unfortunately I am apart of a generation that is so isolated by their screen addictions, that I am lucky if I can manage to see anyone outside interactions on the phone. (I am in my mid-20s.) No one is looking to do things out in the real world, at least no one that I know. Even more unnervingly, it is not just my fellow peers. My father, mother, and stepdad are more addicted to their phones then me! They tirelessly scroll on facebook reels, consume youtube constantly and partake in video games 24/7. God, I remember my stepdad teaching me to read as a child. In this last year he had read 4 books, while I read 32. He blames it entirely on his addiction to technology. Not to mention, I see Gen Alpha and it is utterly terrifying. They’ve had phones and tablets in their hands since they were as young as two years old. I want to be hopeful, but as much as I preach against social media and at the very least monitoring your usage, I am met with disregard. In fact on 2 different occasions where I preached the addictive nature of social media to two different friends, they continued scrolling as I spoke on the subject. We need a revolution, and I pray for one— but I don’t think it will be a revolution of the masses. The people in power are not telling us its bad because they want our money, so people don’t care. I think that those of the underground are waking up and will continue to. I always say that “thousands of people having personal revolutions is the revolution” and I think that is applicable here.
I hope you are right. I joined a martial arts class last summer (6 mos ago) after 36 years being out of practice. It’s been an amazing experience. It’s not just the physical part of getting back in shape but the mental and emotional benefits of having a new community. I’m meeting people from all walks of life - younger, older, with different jobs, different viewpoints - people I’d never have met online. We see each other on our good days and our bad days; we wonder where someone is if they didn’t show up one week - are they okay? We teach one another, patiently but also encouraging each other to push forward and learn something new, get just a little more flexible or strong each time. We care when someone has an injury and encourage to take time to heal. We do all this imperfectly and yet it all works. I hope more people will rediscover the simple joys of getting out and doing real things with other people.