time spent offline

Attention creates reality.

My attention creates time spent offline the Substack newsletter; and it has done so week after week for three plus years now. Your attention, week after week for three plus years now, sustains time spent offline. This tiny corner of the internet, with its curated five ideas to spend less time online and (re)discover the pleasures of the offline world exists because you and I— Yes, you and I— have decided it is worthy of our attention; my attention to create, your attention to consume. If either of us were to decide today that this, Yes, this, isn’t worthy of our attention anymore— And, Before I let you go/ I would never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never Let you go— time spent offline the Substack newsletter would cease to exist. Our attention, what Mihaly Csikszentmuhalyi refers to as psychic energy (I love this term so much!!!!) in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience creates reality as we know it. Without your sustained attention to read, and my attention to write, this, Yes, this, wouldn’t exist. That’s what attention does for you, for me; it creates ideas, thoughts, feelings, actions— It creates our reality.

And yet, you, Yes you, waste this precious, magical, powerful resource— Your attention— on the most banal, useless waste of time known to man: The internet, though the Internet can be useful. In fact, you want nothing to do with it— Your attention— You don’t know what to do with it. And so when Silicon Valley asks for it, your attention, you are more than happy, relieved even, to give it up in exchange for the most banal, useless time wasting apps and content, if for a momentarily relief from having to figure out what to do with your attention. Here, you say, picking up your phone and opening the same app for the 50th time today, take my attention! You don’t know what to do with it anyway— Your attention.

Attention creates reality.

And, there is no escaping attention itself. As long as you are awake, alive, your attention is also awake, alive, and demanding to be put to use; to be exercised, exorcised— 16/7/365. This used to terrify me; to have to decide what to do with my attention all of my waking hours, minutes, seconds; for days, weeks, months, years to come— For a lifetime. So when Silicon Valley asked for it, my attention, I was more than happy, relieved even, to give it up in exchange for its most banal, useless time wasting apps and content for a momentarily relief from having to figure out what to do with my attention. I didn’t value my attention because I didn’t know then, and didn’t realize until very recently, that my attention creates my reality.

The world is bad; People are bad; I am bad: This was my reality when I was on social media constantly paying attention to content that insisted the world is bad; people are bad; you are bad. Every day I would wake up and terrified by my attention— psychic energy— awake and demanding to be exercised, exorcised, I would turn to my phone and open the same app I would open 50 times that day and tell Silicon Valley, Here, take my attention! Do with it as you wish!, and Twitter would happily feed me a stream of its concoction of the world is bad; people are bad; you are bad content. And I lived that reality day after day for years: The world was bad, people were insufferable, and I was the worst of all; I didn’t have none of what everyone seemed to have on their newsfeed— I, inadequate, incompetent, incapable.

Then one day, years after I quit social media and stopped waking up to the news, reality shifted. The world became mostly good; People mostly good; I, too, mostly good. This is my reality now. No, I’m not trying to convince you of such reality, just like you can’t convince me otherwise. Because in my reality, in the world I pay attention to and experience with all my senses— sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch — the world is mostly good, people are mostly kind and wonderful, and I, too, like most people am good and wonderful most of the time. And if you were to insist otherwise, that the world is bad; people are bad; you are bad, I would believe that for you, that perhaps for you that is reality based on what you choose to pay attention to, what you allow into your reality day after day. Your reality, your choice.

What you focus on expands: Mind over matter.

You are here, Yes, here, expending your attention reading time spent offline because you know, you feel deep down, that the internet is a banal, useless waste of your precious attention; though the Internet can be useful. Knowing this, you still find yourself picking up your phone, opening the same app for the 50th time, scrolling for hours because you don’t fully understand what your attention is capable of creating and what it can do for you: Your attention creates your reality. What you focus on expands. Now, attention doesn’t care how it’s used; what you pay attention to. It doesn’t have a moral, ethical standard for things it insists to be used towards. That’s your own moral, ethical compass; To exercise, make art, have a thriving social life. Attention just demands to be used— you can use it to watch reels, tik tok, tik tok, tik tok, or use it to play music, lift weights, see friends— it doesn’t care what it’s used for as long as it is used. It’s not up to you to decide if psychic energy is used, it is used, but, and this is the best part, the most freeing, life-affirming, delightful fact, it is up to you to decide, to choose, how your attention is used. You can choose, daily, moment to moment, what you pay attention to and in the process create the reality you desire: A world mostly good; People mostly delightful; You, too, like most people, mostly wonderful.

Your choice, your reality.