time spent offline

All my dreams came true this year. I even met someone offline. I loved hearing him tell the story: “We were at a comedy show and there is this woman heckling from the sides.” I smile coyly. I am that person. They say it’s impossible now to meet someone IRL, that I need the apps. We all do, they say. I try the apps and I’m exhausted by day two. The avatars wear me out; I delete them. I will not go back. I cannot go back. It has taken me between 3 to 12 years to get here— depending on how you look at it. To get to where they said was impossible. Things are just different now, you know, they look at me with that sad-knowing smile. I smile back to placate them. There are no rules, of course, only consequences. I know that and I choose my consequences very carefully. I don’t know what life will be like without the apps and the avatars, but I know what it is like with the apps and the avatars; so much noise, it will drown me one day. That’s just life, you know, they look at me with that sad-knowing smile. I smile back to placate them. Life adjusts accordingly, of course. I know that too and I choose my life very carefully. And boy have I chosen well, and this year has been a beautiful testament to a life well chosen. This year is truly the first time I felt that magical shift in my time spent offline journey. All my efforts to unplug prior were setting the ground work—building a solid foundation— to what would unfold this year. Efforts that began in earnest in 2016 after reading this article and after I realized I was trapped in a false reality on Twitter. Social media is an illusion. There is a saying in Ethiopia that directly translates to The inside for the priest: The outside for social media.

Here’s how I spent 2023 offline.

Your girl was out and about! There is no way around it but time spent offline requires you get a life. Some people are lucky in that they can stay inside all evening, most weekends, tinkering with their music equipment, art supplies, and perfecting their cookie dough recipe. These people are not miserable staying inside scrolling endlessly on their devices. And when I grow up, maybe even in the upcoming year, I want to be these people: Spend my evenings, and part of my weekends, tinkering with my typewriter, pouring out the stories that beg to escape the confines of my mind all day long. But this year, not being these people and knowing I no longer have the digital pacifiers to soothe my antsy, boredom, and generic existential despair, I was forced to keep a tight schedule that kept me out and about, even in the evenings. You’re not tired after work, you’re just lazy. If you can get over that initial hump right after work— my workout classes right after work give me that energy boost— then you can manage an activity for a couple of hours afterwards. I learned it’s very relaxing to be out on a weekday evening at a chill event with a friend or two whose company I enjoy. What is not relaxing is consuming all the noise, all the rage on a tiny screen, no matter how comfortable the couch is. And when you get home around 10/11pm, you are properly tired— in body, mind, spirit— from a full day well spent doing cool stuff with cool people that you get in bed feeling all triumphant and ready to enjoy your well earned rest. What more can one ask of the day?

Being out and about also kept me around people. When people don’t live in your phone, you have no choice but to go out looking for them. And to my surprise and pure delight, there are a lot of people IRL doing cool shit and looking for people to do cool shit with. Social media gives the false illusion that everyone is online all the time. No, YOU are online all the time. Got it? Your habits have created a false reality: You see everyone online all the time because you are online all the time. I know, I know, tough shit. You know what to do, don’t you? There are people, plenty of people, offline. They are all around you: Are you paying attention? Are you paying attention to your reality so you don’t miss even the most minuscule body language, the utterance of a few words that can lead to a lifetime connection? In February, I went to a book club meetup group. It was my first time and I was a bit nervous and frazzled from having rushed there right after my workout class. But I absolutely loved that month’s book and I couldn’t wait to talk about it. As the discussion went on, I noticed everyone was nice, agreeable and contributed their carefully filtered and well scripted opinions to the discussion of a nuanced book. Except this person sitting to my left. I’m used to witnessing the script; you get used to the script when you’re on social media but it is jarring once you get used to reality. Do you people ever say anything that doesn’t sound like AI generated word-mush? Except the person sitting to my left, she says what must be the first thing that comes to her mind before the social media script takes over. I’m delighted. We spend all summer together showing for miracles.

Speaking of people, I have met some amazing, brilliant, wonderful people this year I’m blessed to call friends, but I have also met others that I would probably never see again in this lifetime but have had a profound impact on my life. I scrounge the streets, all corners of reality, searching for these connections now. It’s amazing the profound, utterly life changing conversations you can have with strangers once you get over the false fear that other people are so unlike you and are to be avoided at all costs: Look down; scroll, scroll, scroll. I have been around all kinds of people, and I mean all.kinds.of.people, and on the surface people couldn’t be more different but if you can go deep enough, if you can just get through a few layers of their carefully guarded illusions to remain safe, most people are just like you. Exactly like you, in fact. This is freeing. This will free you in ways no amount of therapy, no amount of scrolling, can free you. I listen carefully, probe even more gently. I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind: “Do you think you’re running away?” I trust he can handle it. When I’m brave enough to blurt out the truth, I have learned it frees others to blurt out their truth in turn. He chuckles, shakes his head, “Of course I am!” I’m relieved. He talks and talks and talks. When it’s my turn, I talk and talk and talk. We are saying the same thing. Why wouldn’t we? We are more alike than different. I used to wrongly assume I needed to understand myself first to understand others. No, no, no. The other way around. Shut up: Listen.

Which brings me to one of my favourite time spent offline accomplishments of the year: Self-recovery. I was tired of runnin’. By then, by the time I opened Sisters Of The Yam each morning tucked away in the tiny corner of my barely lit apartment, I was exhausted by the illusions I carefully safeguarded all these years to keep myself safe. If it makes you happy/ Then why the hell are you so sad? And there was no escaping it this time. This time, having gotten rid of everything I declared was keeping me confined, trapped, suffocating and still gasping for air, I surrendered. One evening, wrapped in my cozy blanket and nothing else to save me, I asked it: What do you need? It answered, Attention. It was the most terrifying thing; I wept. I didn’t know how to pay attention to it; to myself. I only knew how to pay attention to important things: I wasn’t important. Still, I kept showing up each morning— unplugged, undistracted— to Sisters Of The Yam. I understood when Aundre Lorde spoke of the brave, bruised girlchild within— to love her in the light as well as in the darkness, quiet her frenzy toward perfection and encourage her attentions toward fulfillment. That day, after I closed Sisters of the Yam, I opened my $2 notebook and on the empty pages I declared it— the pain, the brave, bruised girlchild within— important. And since I only knew how to pay attention to important things, it was easier to pay attention this way. To my surprise, and utter delight, there was nothing to be terrified about. Sure, some days, when I remember things I want to forget, the rage comes up with so much furry it threatens to destroy everything on sight. Everything. And instead of running away— having destroyed everything I used to use to hide, ignore, repress— I pay attention to it. I welcome it, even at times encourage it, to come out and play. Writing is my favourite form of play. The art of conversation is another form of play I throughly enjoy; it is the highest form of play to be in the company of people who you see clear, who see you so clearly in return. It is the most intoxicating feeling is to be witnessed; the rage subsides when the pain is witnessed. I cannot believe my luck. It is true what they say: Dreams do come true.