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Prove all things for yourself… No person can solve another’s problem for him. Each must work out his own salvation. Here are some effectual rules, suggestions, and helps thereto; but results that one obtains from them will depend on how faithfully and persistently one uses the helps given.
– H. Emilie Cady in How I Used Truth
WELCOME to time spent offline! This tiny corner of the internet is dedicated to getting off the URL to (re)discover the joys of IRL.
This newsletter contains an additional section, collateral damage; a bi-weekly, diary-style publication chronicling my journey of self-recovery through expression and play. The opposite of addiction is expression! You can opt-in to receive these emails here. Every other Sunday. My time spent offline journey began in 2011 after deleting my Facebook profile in utter fit of digital exhaustion. Something felt very off about the unrelenting pull Facebook had on my attention. Since then, I have been on the relentless pursuit of time spent offline. I’m not on social media. I do not follow the news. I use a dumb smartphone. I spend most of my time surrounded by reality, my reality, and I love it here.
time spent offline is a personal journey, a revolution for one. This is not about the online world at all, it’s about the offline world. It’s about what remains when you go offline; because getting offline is the easiest part: Just delete social media, just get a flip phone. Then, what? How do you find love without the avatars to swipe through? How do you maintain your humanity in a world that has gone madly digital? I have spent many years trying to answer this question: How do I remain human in a world of avatars, apps, and other digital traps?
time spent offline is not about quitting social media, it’s about living in community. time spent offline is not about downgrading to a flip phone, it’s about ignoring the devices long enough to connect deeply with the people all around you. time spent offline isn’t about giving up the I/internet, it’s about paying so much attention to reality that it intoxicates you. IRL fills you with so much joy, delight and pleasure and you cannot fathom what you were doing spending all that time on URL, back then, back in the days.
time spent offline is a documentation of my journey and lessons from years of plugging/unplugging, connecting/disconnecting, learning/unlearning. I do not have the answers but if you are interested in my ramblings, every Tuesday I send out five ideas on all things related to spending less time online and (re)discovering the pleasures of the offline world.
Below is an outline of the five ideas I share every week:
A blog post by me.
Random, but related stuff.
A “quote.”
An article from around the web.
A question/challenge for you.
You can read the full archive here and other posts as they are published. Some popular posts:
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