Best of time spent offline

Top posts from your fav tiniest corner of the internet

Hold On, We’re Going Home

Hi there,

In December, time spent offline turns four. I have lived plenty lives since I began writing to you here. So much has come and gone, I can barely catch my breath thinking of it all, and yet, something kept bringing me back to this tiny corner of the internet every week, week after week, after week. I do not know much but I do know life gives you exactly what you ask for. Nothing more, nothing less. So, ask carefully, my friends. May all your dreams come true. It is the best feeling I know of.

From the beginning:

2020

• “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
  — Herbert A. Simon

• Read a book instead

2021

• Laugh or log off

• Demons hate fresh air

• “The problem is not that the truth is harsh but that liberation from ignorance is as painful as being born. Run after truth until you are breathless. Accept the pain involved in re-creating yourself afresh. These ideas will take a life to comprehend, a hard one interspersed with drunken moments.”
  — Naguib Mahfouz

• A boring iPhone is still a very useful phone

• Demonizing the tool(s) is scapegoating

• Spotify and the paradox of choice: How a culture of abundance robs us of satisfaction

• Should you delete social media? That's the wrong question

• When someone is wrong on the internet

• 🤭

  

  winning is fun

2022

• Why I Am not Going To Buy A Computer

• Kill your phone

• Willpower is for losers

• In praise of doing (absolutely) nothing

• “The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

  — Henry Miller

• If you could connect your computer to a vast network of information, how would you use this service?

  a) Gather valuable scientific information.

  b) Improve your education.

  c) Demonstrate your complete lack of personality by spending countless hours typing inane and often obscene sentence fragments that can be viewed by people just like you in “real time.”

• The best advice is always the simplest (not easy, but simple): Get a life.

• Apps won't cure your loneliness. Or, why people are good for you (Sorry, social media followers don't count.)

• “Easy decisions, hard life. Hard decisions, easy life.”

  — Jerzy Gregorek

2023

• In every person there are two wolves who are always at war with each other. One is evil, the second one is good. Which wolf wins?

• “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

  — Romans 12:2

• What is social media for?

• situation (spaaaaaaaaaaace) reaction

• The Internet Is Rotting

• Internet vs “internet,” and non-internet things

• “INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIVING A LIFE: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

  — Mary Oliver

• ♡

  

• If social media didn't exist

• The best of both worlds

• So, Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

• We're not the crazy ones here

• IRL > URL

2024

• If you can’t win and you don’t want to lose (of course) you can always play the victim.

• save.your.tears foranotherday

• Being a loser is hard work

  

  327 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1W7

• How to get started with offline living when you have no friends, a dysfunctional family, and live in an antisocial city

• There are no solutions, only trade-offs

• Befriending Yourself (is Sacred Work)

• “The Self is the friend of a man who masters himself through the Self, but for a man without self-mastery, the Self is like an enemy at war.”

  ― The Bhagavad Gita, India

• My body can’t poop without my phone anymore

• How The Fuck Is Screen-Free Evening Impossible? Just Walk Away From The Screen. Close Your Eyes.

• You can have your cake and eat it too

• (quality) time spent alone

• Ex(o)(e)rcise your demons

• Starting and ending your days offline

• That's all there is to it

You can find the full archive here: https://mehretbiruk.substack.com/archive

And the blog, https://mehretbiruk.com/archive/

So, please do not say I didn’t give you enough on these digital streets when I take time spent offline offline beginning January 2025. An analog publication delivered straight to your mailbox every month with 20 ideas. The only lasting truth Is Change— But you already knew that.

P.s.

BKIND Une Cenne

That’s all for this week!

Thank you for reading, and share with anyone you think may benefit.

Until next time,

Mehret

---

This Substack is no longer being updated. If you enjoyed the content here, you might like OFFLINE, a printed zine with more ideas to unplug, delivered straight to your mailbox.