Going offline

1 minute read

I am going to be off screens for two months. No laptop, no social media till 2021.

I have some books, a drawing pad, and one of these bad boys for writing.

I'll still post photos here, on occasion. Here are two of my tiny little 80 pound husky ❤️


He's a new soul, born in January. 2020 has been a great year for him.



Like many people, I've spent a most of my day in front of a screen. I want to experience the opposite of that.

First thing in the morning, there's the small screen. You grab it to turn off the alarm. It tells you you've got notifications. The small screen is always there. Sometimes I'd go to the bathroom without it. Then I felt my pockets. Where did it go?

Then there's the bigger screen. Slack, Gmail, Github all have notifications. I try to get to Inbox Zero in the morning, and then again at the end of the day. In between, whenever a tab has the unread bubble on it, it's hard not to click.

Lastly, after work, there's the biggest screen. That one is not really my vice. I find Twitter more addictive than TV. But the average Netflix subscriber watches two hours a day. The core of Netflix and Youtube are their recommendation algorithms. There is always a next thing to watch. By default, it starts playing automatically.


Our tech today puts us in a reactive posture. Things bubble up, are presented to us, and we respond.

Steve Jobs said that a computer was a bicycle for the mind. Well, the cool thing about bicycles is that you can ride them wherever you want. Too many folks are stuck riding a subway instead: back and forth on a set track, and every few minutes it goes ding.

In Go they call it sente. Whoever has it is starting things. The other player is responding. Sente is the initiative. It's fluid, it passes back and forth.

We have to regain sente.

Make some time. Go offline and enjoy the sunshine ☀️