Tech Fast

It is October 12th. It’s 11:46. I had my first craving to do something, and that was to check the weather before I go out into the world. Clearly, that’s not going to be possible. So I’m going to have to play it by ear, and ask my wife if she’d be so kind as to write down the next few days of weather and whether there’s a likelihood of rain.

I’ve unplugged my computers. I’ve hid my phones. I’ve unplugged any kind of web-enabled device and reconfigured my office, pulled down the big Mac and the monitor, so I give myself the best opportunity not to want to reach for those things.

I’m really, really excited. This is fun.

Yesterday I had two urges. The first was to check the weather. The second was to call the shop where I bought a cigar.

I went to the city. I sat in front of a Jackson Pollock at MoMA and read Manage Your Day-to-Day, several of its essays. Then the New York Public Library, right next to it. I had no idea a library could be that cool. Then a Citi Bike all the way down to the Mulberry library.

I wrote down some things I want to explore. I’m no longer a pawn; I need to make moves. If you want the upgrade, you have to make it to the other side of the board. And: what intention are you bringing to your attention?

Another idea I’ve been entertaining is curiosity, enthusiasm, passion and excitement. I don’t want you to follow it. I don’t want you to find it. I want you to light it. Become a bonfire so bright that I’m swept into it, not because you manufactured a fire, but because the fire is what happens once you really start getting curious. Bring a fire to the game and we can make it bigger. Once it’s bigger, it lights up not only your life; it can be seen for miles.

Today I look forward to having those cravings and staring them in the face. I will take the inconvenience and rock on.

Yesterday I found my groove a little more. I needed the nearest LensCrafters, and I was really, really close to going online to look it up. Then I decided I’ll figure it out, and if I don’t, this is one of the ramifications of this experiment. I didn’t find it. I rode the Promenade into Dumbo instead and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

One of the things I’m learning is that I have to designate more time to thinking, to relaxing, to getting into the groove where this content starts flowing more effortlessly. The more side adventures I have, the less time I devote to being really introspective.

I’ve been looking at what has changed. Our news cycles used to be once a day. New albums came out every Tuesday. So how important is being informed, really, if we lived the whole universe before without it being so important? It’s a desire to be informed, not a requirement. The way I want to operate in the world is more deliberate. I want to give my mind the opportunity to explore possibility, to see its own connections, to think its own thoughts, not be driven and guided and directed by the intention of a content provider.

This process is letting me realize what is fundamental about technology, and what is fundamental about me. I’m realizing I don’t have a compulsion to technology right now. There are some convenience things I wish I had access to, but nothing that would really tip the boat. It’s like fasting: after you go without sugar for a while, it tastes different. You’re not the same person.

An interesting second experiment: how long can I go without music in my life? And then, what is music to me?

Yesterday was an amazing day, fully immersed in a creative process. I trusted myself. I listened to my advice. I spent more time with my ideas.

I picked up Creativity by Csikszentmihalyi at the library, walked over to a café, and sat there two and a half hours. Wrote forty-five minutes, took a break, came back, wrote more.

Then I had the idea: what if I go get a roti? I forget where it came from, but I followed it, and it led me to some serendipity. I met a composer, a lyricist, a storyteller, and we walked all the way to Nostrand having an amazing conversation. She gave me context back, and a filmmaker to look up, Herzog. A natural confluence of resonance.

At night I sat down with Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I started reading at ten, went to bed at two-thirty, and woke up only to finish it. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a book so quickly. I don’t think I’ve ever been so immediately fascinated with the author and the material at the same time.

I’m curious. There is a magic orchestration, which we will call natural. We will not make it bigger than it is. It is available to everybody in every moment.

I’ve made a lot of conclusions about two-week experiments. I want to do them indefinitely. I’m not sure exactly what they’ll be. But two-week experiments are part of neuroplasticity: changing the way my brain fires, always having a beginner’s mind, an experimentality.

For the next one, I want to start forming certain hypotheses and carving out behaviors I want to take on. I want to be looking at life from multiple vantage points without collapsing into the assumption that the one I’m doing right now is right.

This is also the first week of the next six-week cycle. I want to build the mise en place, the foundation, so I can just start using those ingredients to cook. I want it field-tested. I want my ideas to live in my hands, on the paper, published, in some conversation with the larger body of life.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time envisioning where the two-week experiments can go. Cooking, talents, part one, part two, part three. A constraint that shows me how I want to go about achieving something, putting a time and a depth and a breadth to what I want to pursue. It’s the avenue where I experience challenge and choice, where my brain fires on new cylinders.

In the tech journal I wrote about how brands spend billions of dollars to figure out how to tempt us into consumption, and how vigilant and focused and intentional we have to be. As we find ways to minimize the distraction, it opens up the opportunity even more. Once we’re really poised to use the wealth of information, the power of communication, the power that comes with the technology, adequately and in relationship to what our intention is, then we give ourselves a chance to connect with the true power of technology. Instead of having technology have power over us.

I want to look at the promise of technology we were given growing up, through science fiction and movies and cartoons. Back to the Future, Terminator, The Jetsons. How it was going to give us back time. How it was going to make our lives easier. How it was going to, finish the blank.

My favorite new word is autotelic: enjoy the process of what you’re doing in and of itself. Don’t ask it to lead you anywhere. Don’t ask it to reward you with anything.

I’ve put a couple of ideas down for continuing it, within this technological challenge: make the next two weeks where I only turn on a little bit of the faucet. And then I turn a little bit more of the faucet, and I start seeing these choices as choices, not as habitual behaviors that short-circuit my capacity to choose.

The faucet

1. Make the next two weeks where I only turn on a little bit of the faucet.
2. And then I turn a little bit more of the faucet.
3. And I start seeing these choices as choices,
4. not as habitual behaviors that kind of short-circuit my capacity to choose.

closedopen

It’s amazing what this two-week experiment has done so far. A lot of these ideas were loose, unharnessed ideas.

It’s 10:18 on October 18th. That’s one of those moments I’ll remember, and I got it captured on audio. Reason enough to smile.

Yesterday I reverted into an old habit. Twice I went on my computer, and I really beat myself up for it. I didn’t give myself permission to do it. I don’t think it was hurting anything, but at the same time, it is me breaking the covenant of this experiment. I woke up with a little twinge in my vibration.

But we can build momentum from wherever we are. It’s a story that we tell ourselves. I know I’m capable of recovering from choices. It doesn’t have to wash away all the work we’ve done up to this point. I’m stronger than the choices I make.

Today is the first day of the six-week cycle. And today is the seventh day of the fast: the end of today is a full week.

I didn’t use technology from a place of urgency yesterday. But there was a point when I tried to convince myself: if we do this, then we’ll start tomorrow. This internal negotiation. I don’t need that negotiation. I need to write the technique down so I can laugh at it the next time it occurs. If we just do this one more time, we’ll begin tomorrow. We’ll be stronger to start that tomorrow. It never plays out like that. So just resist the urge.

I also asked myself, what is pleasure? It is not environmentally enabled. It is individually enabled, and experienced through our interactions with the environment. I can’t look into the mirror and ask it to make me smile. I have to smile for that reflection to be present in the world.

And scorecards: how we can measure different areas of our lives, look for our progressions qualitatively and quantitatively, and design experiments that push us toward them.

I’m willing to bring what I’m learning to a place of performance. To one of my new favorite words: field testing. The experiment of the idea is the purpose of seeking the idea out. I’m glad I recorded that.

The other breakthrough yesterday: I’m getting toward the end of this diet. We’ve stripped away a lot of the bad stuff, but the process of stripping it away has itself created a habit, and there needs to be a transition into another approach. How do I stop policing myself? I realized it was based on a lot of fear, on a story I was telling myself about not belonging in this new atmosphere.

I bought jeans. There’s a reason those companies have been around so long. Make sure they fit, a little diversity in the colors, and that’s it. Why stray so far in that discovery phase? It’s not necessary.

On a bike yesterday, after writing about pleasure as a choice in the moment, I decided just to enjoy. Just look up. I could watch the world go by above me. I could marvel at the majesty of this season change, this transition. I can enjoy a walk, a song, the coffee. It is all possible.

Today I want to work on putting a bridge between my impulse and my activity, and asking myself: what is it really used for?

My meditation was deep this morning. My breathing was very intentional, my mind a little more stable, a little less wandering.

Yesterday I wrote about social relationships, social media, anti-social media, and the third island: what works for me works for me, what works for her works for her, but what works for us may be something entirely different. I also wrote about impulse control. I made some headway there.

I’m taking great pleasure in the Citi Bike. It brings all of your attention to a head. You are required to have all of your faculties about you, to see, to anticipate, to flow with this sea of traffic, to be one with it, to solve problems before they appear, to trust that if I take a left and go with the flow of traffic, an opportunity is going to open up. It is an amazing dance.

I bought Getting Things Done by David Allen at McNally Jackson. I told her I couldn’t say I was looking for a book, because I hadn’t started. I could say I was looking forward to looking for a book. Then I wrote for two hours straight at La Colombe.

Life is unfolding for me in a beautiful way.

I haven’t spoken out loud all day today. This is the first time. I’ve been thinking all day.

I went to Washington, D.C. for a friend’s wedding. On the train I uncovered some amazing insights about the story I’ve been telling myself. At dinner I got to talking about my two-week tech sabbatical, and I kept bringing up the theme of relevancy. Asking the question: what is it for? Why am I doing it? Being present to yourself and to what the situation is demanding. At the reception I shared it again: the importance of relevancy as it relates to presence and focus, building slack and empty space into the system.

My only hiccup was when somebody asked what my Mondays look like. I got a little defensive. I felt anxious about people judging me. We’re going to work on that.

This morning I listened to Josh Waitzkin on Tim Ferriss’s show. He articulated a lot of things I’ve been doing without having heard them first. I have a list of things I want to look up, so I’m going to keep a research queue: the things I look forward to looking up the next time I’m on the internet. Just like some people have a no-rules day in their diet, I will have a no-rules day on the internet.

Tomorrow is the last full day of this tech experiment. But even going back to the phone, I look forward to coming in with this broader sense of what it’s going to take to bring these principles to bear in daily living. How can I be more efficient? How can I create within these empty spaces?