Can we detach from technology?

I bet we can.

I feel the need to find a limit. A boundary. A border, Again. You probably know I had a new, huge spring cleaning on my digital life lately. After the deletion of tons of Gigabytes, I keep wondering what I am going to do next. Am I going to surf the net again, in the constant search of everything, helplessly drowning in the information overload again? Nope.

I sense that the only way to maintain a sane relationship with technology is to find balance between connectedness and disconnectedness. Thanks to the digital semi-sabbatical I have embarked on, I have been disconnecting a lot lately: real values have come into clear focus.

Mental clarity makes important things evident, while enabling me to detach from goals. To make it short, I now live life in action, not reaction. Living in action is, for example, when I decide what and how something can influence my inner self. In complete disconnection I have found the keys for a healthier life, but there are concepts I cannot grasp completely, because I need to take a next step in the path towards technological freedom. My next step is to make the real/digital gap wider. How?

  • I enjoy more of what I have, instead of searching always new things to enjoy myself. I am sure that I have lots of interesting stuff laying around on my hard disk I’ve never enjoyed. 

  • I will continue shutting my connection down every time I do something different than surfing. This way I can easily focus on the task at hand. 

  • I will never download something, unless I delete at least 1 item I have  

  • Delete stuff with same content 

  • Less media, More value. I will reduce my information consumption again 

  • Limit the time I spend managing my inbox.
    It usually doesn’t take me more than 5 minutes to check my daily inbox. 

These are my rules for the months to come. I’m perfectly conscious there is nothing I can do to oversimplify my life except to stay away from the screen or being selective about the information I consume. I perfectly understand I’m elevating to humanity augmentation, but it’s useful to remind myself I am more a human than a cyborg: pushing to the limit, to tell the needed from the unneeded

Given that the choice to live a better life is only up to me, this is what I’m going to do for the next few weeks. If it works the way I want it to work, this is what I’m going to do for my life.