Life on My Own Terms

One of the biggest realizations a few weeks into this analog summer experiment is a sense of profound contentment.

On a day-to-day basis, I feel like I'm riding a wave from one activity to the next; knowing what I should do, when, and how feels intuitive and natural.

I didn't realize how much I missed this feeling until I stripped the algorithms out of my life. Up until recently, turning on my phone exposed me to thousands of different ways I could be living, things I could be doing, places I could be seeing, and activities I could be optimizing - all in a single day. Each possibility was presented in a slick, seductive way designed to make me feel unsatisfied with my life.

Consciously, I never really scrolled and thought:

"Huh. BigMorning92 really has a great point. I should upend my life and become a digital nomad so I can be free...whatever that means."

No. I just looked at the post and moved onto others.

But the posts must have had a compounding effect on my psyche. After seeing thousands of them, my mind subconsciously began to believe that I should be living in the ways I was seeing online. That I was falling behind, or that I wasn't making the most of my opportunities. Deep down, my tribal brain was playing a game of comparisons. And I was losing.

Which is why it feels so freeing to recognize this pattern.

Without the algorithms, my brain feels like it has space to see, cease, and desist this ugly feedback loop. Now, without being exposed to hundreds of different ways to spend my time before I eat my oatmeal, my mind is soft and relaxed enough to decide what it wants based on its own preferences - guided by a lifetime of experience and growth.

It suddenly feels like my mind is an open field that I am free to roam about as I please; like I've returned home to a sense of self that got lost in the noise, and that I didn't realize was gone until everything went quiet. It's as if I forgot about the crickets on a warm summer evening because I was blasting a loud motor. And now that I've turned it off, that sweet summer sound is back.

Just this morning, a thought popped into my head:

"I should learn Spanish."

Why?

Ten years ago I spent a summer studying Spanish out of pure curiosity. Without constant distractions, I was able to get pretty decent at it. (If I was dropped on the side of the road in Costa Rica, I would have been able to find my way to a hotel and a restaurant. Beyond that, who knows). I paid for an online program, watched a bunch of Telemundo shows, and translated my thoughts as frequently as possible. This wasn't to "get ahead", become more marketable, or even to prepare for a trip. I just...wanted to do it.

That spontaneous desire ended up being drowned out by other, more random content. And I couldn't hear its whisper for a decade. Until now. It's still there, and I can finally hear it.

The same is true for my writing. In 2021, I wrote a daily blog for the entire summer. Knowing that I wanted to write a daily essay made me see the world differently. Instead of skimming through each day in a blur of distraction, I was more present with my experiences and feelings in order to notice the subtle tug of inspiration that moved me towards an unknown destination.

That tug is impossible to feel in a swirling vortex of online slush.

Here's the thing: when I felt that tug, and followed it, I felt whole. Like myself. Like I was fulfilling my purpose here on Earth. I am a writer, after all. And so, of course, writing makes me feel good. It's a shame that it has been lost in the shuffle for so long.

As my mind softens during this experiment, I feel far more open to the spontaneous creative wisdom that appears in a flash. I am more aware of the subtleties of life - the tiny threads that sometimes vibrate just enough to catch my attention and move me to follow them to their source, wherever that may be. That type of focus requires a quiet space, a peaceful mind, and stillness in the soul.

All of which are being fostered in the warm embrace of an analog life.