time spent offline

Life is not rocket science, it really doesn’t take a genius.

By a rough estimation based solely on my own lived experience, and precise feminine intuition, you can solve about 72 to 82 per cent of your current life problems by going offline.

Just Walk Away From The Screen. Close Your Eyes.

No social media, no waking up to the news, no scrolling to sleep; Life is truly amazing unplugged.

This might be the best kept secret of our times. You really don’t need any of the digital noise— None!— to live a perfectly balanced, enjoyable, exciting life.

The best part of my day is waking up in the morning to my lovely offline morning ritual.

I get up around 7am and upon waking up, I look forward to three simple yet wonderful things that make up my offline morning ritual: Coffee, a book, and my journal. It is the quietest, calmest, most peaceful part of my day, and the books and the empty pages tell me all that I need to know first thing in the morning; No avatars, no internet connection required.

Some mornings, having spent the night else where, with very little sleep and plenty bad decisions, I still rush home to make my coffee and sneak in a bit of reading and journaling before I start my day.

This practice grounds me.

It is where I learn bits and pieces of wisdom from the books to get me through the day, where I make sense of the things that I’m finding confusing and frustrating in my life at any given moment. And when I ask the empty page a question, every single time without fail and to my utter shock and delight, it answers.

You can’t hear such answer, your truth dying to reach you, when you spend all your time scrolling through the deafening noise of the internet.

Though the Internet can be a useful tool.

My time spent offline morning ritual costs as little as less than $10 a month. You can buy second hand books for less than $5, or borrow unlimited books for free from your public library. And the nearest dollar store carries notebooks and pens for less than $5 each.

It really doesn’t take a genius, and certainly it doesn’t require much money either— Just your decisions.

And once you decide, having it is easy.

With a morning spent like that— Quiet, calm, and peaceful, and knowing there will be another one just like it the next morning, and the morning after, and the morning after, after, the rest of the day becomes bearable. Enjoyable even. Without the digital noise, the avatars shouting their grievances at you non-stop, even the day is much quieter, calmer, and far peaceful.

In the beginning this is unbearable to put up with; intolerable.

You think there is something wrong with you, something wrong with the world, something you must be forgetting to do; Something missing. Nope. That is just the withdrawal symptoms of a brain used to non-stop internet stimulation.

Without constant avatars shouting and scrolling, life is mostly calm, peaceful, quiet.

Even living in one of the the busiest and chaotic cities, my life has a certain underlying quality of calmness and surrender that I absolutely adore and enjoy day to day. This might feel like boredom in the beginning but you will learn to differentiate once you surrender: To lots of time, lots of energy, lots of attention that remains IRL.

You will find yourself going on plenty walks that sometimes it feels like all you do is walk. This is a wonderful use of your time, attention, energy: Demons hate it when you go outside, demons hate fresh air.

On your walks, you notice life happening all around you: People, nature, businesses, activities. This is calming to the spirit. Getting fresh air and noticing reality happening all around you grounds the spirit.

Still, there is plenty of time remaining so you join the gym to kill time, and afterwards you cook delicious meals to nourish your body for all that hard work.

The drugs are fun, and scrolling is easy, but I haven’t yet found a better high than the feeling I get after an amazing workout class, and the feeling of looking in the mirror and loving what I see— No avatars, no internet connection required!

Even the late, late nights I spend roaming the streets in search of delight, of his attention and her infectious laughter, I feel calm, at ease, peaceful. It really doesn’t take a genius to feel good, just your decision, and once you decide having it is easy.

Unplugged, with quiet, calm, peaceful days spent in surrender to all that time, attention, energy that remains, life expands. This is the mind-fuck, the counter-intuitive, the WTF aspect of time spent offline. You slow down, you say HECK NO to the busy, the noisy, the endless garbage of the digital noise they say is necessary for the modern day wo(man) to live, and life expands.

It grows.

Can you believe it?

Unplugged, life is more than you thought is possible.

At times more than you can bear: Completely, utterly, wholly delightful.

To your utter shock and delight, there are people every where and without the algorithm segregating you by what it thinks of you— So little by the way, but you are whole, darling, don’t you ever forget it— you realize she is just like you for the most part: Full of hope, fear, love, rage, and other drugs.

He’s just like you, too. Dying to be seen, heard, understood.

If it helps, find books from places, times, people that are so unlike you, unlike anything you have ever known, and read patiently. You are so worldly and cultured and with your fancy job in a fancy city, what would you possibly have in common with a boy in a village in Rwanda? Everything. Everything.

That is the point of the books.

We read to know we are not alone.

Then, find people, all kinds of people IRL and talk to them. They are just like you.

Let this simple fact of life shock and delight you.

If you feel miserable and you can’t figure out know why, get off your high horse, out of the glass cage you keep yourself trapped inside, and how can I say this without sounding so cliché? Find real connections.

People like you are boring anyway.

If you can figure this out, open yourself up to everyone, everywhere, at all times, life is filled with delightful adventures. Don’t you worry, once you realize this, you will be free to discard those that don’t sit well with your spirit at whim. People are everywhere. They are all just like you. You don’t need to put up with anyone. You understand now. Everywhere.

All exactly like you.

And after a day like this, a day spent offline, I sleep like a baby.

Maybe it’s the excitement for another day to come, to spend a quiet, peaceful, calm morning with coffee, a book, and my journal.

Maybe it’s all that walking, lifting, lunges and squats.

Maybe it’s the way my brain stays active, excited and delighted by all the reality I get to witness, experience, and indulge in all day long in real time.

For whatever reason, when the night comes, and there isn’t much left to do, I get in bed with a book, read for a bit, and I knock out.

Besides getting out of the glass cage I used to keep myself trapped inside, with the avatars shouting their grievances at me from the other side of the tiny glass, sleep is the best gift time spent offline has afforded me.

I know I’m bragging here but trust me, you want it just as much. You need it. Unless, of course, the night requires you staying up all night making plenty bad decisions, roaming the late night searching for delight— No avatars, no internet connection required.

Once you decide, having it is easy.

And in another two years, it will be a decade since I began this journey in earnest.

For years, I put up a fight.

I was so addicted.

I felt controlled by a tiny object in the palm of my hands, the avatars shouting their grievances at me all day long, day after day, and I couldn’t stand to bear wasting my life this way.

The drugs at least come with fun stories, and a cigarette a day keeps the blues away.

The scrolling was nauseating, isolating, miserable.

Uncool.

You look up and nothing to show for it but a few quotable memes, cringe at all the stupid shit your spirit knows to be stupid you wasted all that time on. Your attention wasted on what exactly?

What exactly?

Today, I can look back and know without a single doubt getting offline is the best decision I have made for my life.

Life unplugged is amazing!

There is nothing else unique or out of the ordinary about me really. I’m just a low-tech girl living in a high-tech world: Unplugged, unmedicated; Having lots of fun.

If you want it/You can get it/ For the rest of your life ❤