Life away from social media

Itchy feet: a call for adventure. I like the actual adventure, physically traveling around the world. It’s an eye-opening experience that, as far as I know, not very popular. Why is it that so few of us jump off the cliff and commit to this life, if only for a very short period of time. Doesn’t everybody feel this? You know, this thing. The need to see beyond the benign routine of daily affairs, which usually consists of a day job and passing time behind the disguised dictatorship of entertainment. Do we use our particular form of entertainment or does it uses us? What if we looked at this phenomenon from the point of view that it is using your attention for a specific goal, say economic value? Even more sinister is their persuasive ideas subliminally delivered to your brain in a disguise, like a trojan horse. Perhaps, in time, those goals are achieved and the entertainment of your choice holds you firmly in their hand - They now have the ability to steer your thoughts and ideas of the world, making you do whatever they want.

Maybe I’m imagining a dystopian future world, or maybe, just maybe, it’s happening right now.

Around 2013, I deleted my Facebook account and soon after that, my instagram account as well. At that time, I didn’t feel this nor understand how this could be. I was simply tired of the mindless scrolling and shallow comments and status that I was reading on my feed. I didn’t miss it at all. In fact, it was quite the relief. I didn’t have to showcase any of me as some kind of storefront banner: “look over here, that’s me!”.

Anyways, back to adventure, what does this have to do with social media? Well, it feels to me like the endless, zombie-like, spellbound entertainment side of social media is not healthy at all. In fact, it is my belief that it reduces our capacity to concentrate. All social media platforms’ revenue model is the same: attention economy. The more you zone out of your life, the better it is for them. Thus, they make sure your personal page is littered with shiny images, cap-locks text and emojis.

Your brain will adapt to whatever you give it, because that’s what nature does: it adapts. If you expose it to a certain environment, it will merge with it. The pattern is always the same, at the beginning it feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar and before you know it, your whole being has become one with that environment. If that environment is social media, then your ideas and thoughts about the world will be heavily influenced by that. This, in of itself isn’t bad. However, when we take in consideration the nastiness of these platforms, it becomes obvious that it is not the healthiest way to experience one’s life.

Adventure, yes, I’m getting there.

The emptiness of this endless feed of explosive content in my face was one of the things that changed me the moment I realized that I don’t want to partake in this kind of behaviour any longer. I wanted to explore what else there is. The whole world is plugged on Facebook, yet I left it. Now what? What does life has to offer that the world doesn’t find attractive enough to get off the couch and do it? Travel. So I went.

One of the greatest thing to come out of my travels was the realization that planning is highly overrated. Life is too grandiose and mysterious for us to pretend like we know what will happen. I still plan, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t really expect it to happen the way I envision it in my mind. It would be arrogant of me to think this way now, and yet I did for most of my life. I believe this is a great source of misery, sickness and suffering. Our discontentment is entirely based in expectation. All of it. When you plan and expect to meet your friend on Saturday and he cancels at the last minute, you become hurt. It will always be this way, over and over so long as we keep expecting that our plans will fruit the way we formulate them in our brain.

When I left for the west coast of Canada, I had plan to get to an eco village on Vancouver island. I had made some arrangement with the owner that I would be there at a certain point in my travels. So when I arrived on Vancouver island, I decided that I would walk the entire island from south to north (Swartz bay to Port Hardy). On the 3rd day, I took a wrong turn and went westward instead of going along the eastern coast and ended up taking refuge in a tiny fish & chip restaurant. I was the sole customer and I was absolutely drenched from the down pour. I ordered food and spread some of my stuff to dry. About 15 minutes later, the owner brought my food and asked me what I was up to, since I looked, I would image, quite unusual. I told her that I was walking the whole island but that this rain was nasty and relentless. She was wondering where I would sleep as the rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. So I told her: Probably in my tent. She shook her head and wondered about a place that I could stay for the night. She called her husband on the phone and asked if he knew of a place for me to stay tonight. He did knew of a place. He drove to the restaurant and gave me a ride to the place. Can you guess what the place was? Yep, that same eco village that I had contacted months prior.

This is only one of the many example of magical moments that I’ve experienced in my travels. The feeling of magic is the opposite of clinging to outcome. It is a way of carrying oneself that is not forced. It welcomes and does not ignore.

You don’t need to walk Vancouver island to discover magic. It is not a destination, but an attitude.