Don't Let the Robots Get You Down

More analog, less digital

I started what I’m calling a social media sabbatical this week—a month of avoiding the digital din, at least as much as I can without quitting my day job and various projects that I’ve committed to. And let’s be honest, not engaging at all via digital means isn’t practical and can be pretty isolating these days. Unless you do it with a lot of planning, or have the intention of seeking solitude or silence. But, I felt the need to quell the din sooner than later and don’t have the time off available to fully unplug. So, social media was the thing to go. ¹ I’ve done this before, more than once, and I will say it was a lot easier when I used a flip phone.²

I was banned from Twitter about six months ago, so that one was easy and already done for me. (Why, you ask? Apparently I broke ‘the Twitter rules’ by posting periodic quotes about nature connection every few weeks, or retweeting something about 12 Tiny Things. It’s fine, I don’t want to spend my life doing something that’s called “tweeting” anyway since I am not a bird. Maybe in the next life I will be, but for now, I’ll pass.) So, since Twitter is already gone, that left Facebook and Instagram which are basically the same drug in a slightly different format. As an author with books to promote, especially one just coming out of a ‘book launch season,’ it can feel like taking time away from sharing “on my platform” isn’t an option. But of course it is.³

As I wrote in a blog post five years ago,

“Sometimes too much of something makes the rest of life feel like it’s not enough.

Though I will still need to interact with my work computer for 40 hours per week, I will limit, schedule, or at least be very intentional about the use of my personal computer or phone and use those things as tools to stay up to date with administrative tasks or pay bills or approve edits to my next book – i.e. things that must be taken care of online or that are facilitated by a screen.   I will allow myself to read slowly.  I will eat my breakfast in the company of my food and the rising sun and my own thoughts.  I will use a pen to write on a regular basis.  I will sit in stillness.  I will pay attention to the experience of being outside and in the company of others.

Let’s not let the robots get us down, eh? There’s too much good stuff to pay attention to when we aren’t being sucked into the digital fray.

Eva reading (note: before it got warm and the grass started growing swiftly and the ticks came out. Now we read outside on rocks, or perched in a tree, or on the dock.

Don’t Let the Robots Get You Down

There is an energy– it’s

there in the ether

on the ground

running through the soil

nestling deep in the bedrock

settling with the sediment of lakes

washing downstream via small tributaries

into the massive veins of rivers

that keep the earth alive.

An energy untamed

by technology

refusing to be styled

into the next profitable product,

a fringe

refusing to be unraveled

by life online,

an analog sea

counterbalancing the digital fray.⁴

Three cheers for life offline. At least life off of social media. For a month. 💪

1. Substack isn’t quite social media yet. Right?

2. I miss you daily, trusty flip phone. You were far smarter than anyone gave you credit for.

3. Because if the author doesn’t do it….. (Feel free to make a post about any of my books, or another author’s work who you enjoy, on your social media accounts at anytime. It’s always appreciated.)

4. Poem found in Slouching Toward Radiance. Inspired by Analog Sea, an offline publisher.