Journal: 6 Week Digital Fast

Not sure if anyone would find this interesting, but I'll post it here just in case.

Ideas from Cal Newport, Alastair Roberts and Jordan Peterson have been stewing in my mind, and I'm ready to act. I'm making this as a log of this experiment, both my intentions at the beginning, and the results at the end. I won't be updating it during the initial six weeks.

I'd hoped that my video game and PMO fasting would get me where I wanted to be, but they were not enough. I've only lost my vital attachments to the mental place I've been living.

Temporally speaking, I live in hell. It may be on the outer layers, I know many people in my society are suffering far worse bonds than I am. But I am inside the gates nonetheless. All of my time is spent either in front of a screen, or listening to a device, and none of it is spent doing anything that will advance me in life or draw me upwards. All my time is spent in fake productivity, surfing the web, researching, and even when I'm reading good articles and watching thoughtful videos, I do so without taking time to sort them into my thought. So my thought is emotive and reactive, not separating ideas from people, not thinking things through and incorporating them into my mind. I am intellectually weak.

Likewise, my social life is weak. Human's are social beings, and built to understand complex signals of human communication (though, I have my doubts as to whether this is true of me, as I very rarely catch these, and never use anything but words). Either way, speaking face to face is clearly the way communication is meant to happen; and digital tools that strip the complexity of human communication to text or 'like' buttons do us a disservice. To some degree, the can be said of YT and other one way communication. These have their use, but that should be a planned use, and typically to facilitate face to face interaction. YT of course, is educational and entertaining, but binging lectures and amusing yourself are not edifying. These must be woven into life for higher ends. Yet I literally have no social interaction of this type, the closest I come is daily calls with one person, and less than monthly calls with others. My main communication method is through text.

My spiritual life is dire, for my mind is not my own. I'm often aware that I'm not in control of my mind, and it's being pulled along by other voices. This is no good, and it has to stop. I have to find the clarity I need, and to stop filling my mind endlessly with the thoughts of others.

To summarize, I have a digital life and not a real one.



So, for my experiment, I'll restrict the following for the next 6 weeks.

• I'll only use my phone for the bare necessities. All notifications except for text, phone (both of which are rarely used) and ebay (until I sell everything) will be blocked. I'm installing a launcher that only allows 5 apps to be listed, and an app to block other specified apps from being launched outside the designated window.
• My laptop browser will be locked down as best I may. I'm locking Wikipedia, Nofap, shopping sites, etc., and only allowing 10 minutes of search engines a day.
  
• Audio/Video: I'm blocking youtube, and I'm only listening to the music already on my phone, if anything. The only app that will be allowed, is my audiobook player; and that only during workout times. Video will only be with friends.
  
• Communication: This is difficult. I have no irl friends, and only one friend who I've actually met in person. As it has been for the past years, everyone I've known is someone I've met online and exchanged lengthy correspondence with. That said, I can do the following
  • Remove IM services, and don't use any new ones.
  • I only text one person; I'll make it clear that I'll only being doing this a few times a day.
  • My biggest issue is 'Slowly' an app that mimics pen pal letter sending. I love this, and I've made at least three decent contacts. The same issue I think, could be said of email. Therefore both will be unblocked only in the evening, during a designated hour long period. All my reading and typing will finish when the time is up.
    
  • Nofap is getting blocked for the whole period.

In lieu of these, I'll have to add different activities to replace them.

• Health: I'm going on a moderate diet, lifting 4-5 days a week, and either rucking or jogging 2-3 days. All my workouts after the first week will be recorded on paper, and auto-regulated in all aspects, and lifting will be done without earbuds.
  
• Labor: I have two things in front of me; three papers due in 10 days, and the job that I've spend my life avoiding. I will work on the first, then the second, occupying 4-6 hours before 2pm.
• Reading: I have 5 books I want to get through, in addition to the Arabian Nights, which I'm reading for fun.
  • Two anxiety workbooks
  • 'Healing: Psychological Healing in the Catholic Mystical Tradition by Raymond Lloyd Richmond.
  • 'Love Your God With All Your Mind' by J.P. Moreland, a book on the development of the Christian mind.
    
  • 'Celebration of Discipline' by Richard Foster, a book on the spiritual disciplines.
• Spiritual development: I've been slacking majorly here.
  • I will pray through the Psalms on a monthly basis. I will also go through a list of prayer requests.
  • Continuing my bible reading group.
  • I have to attend church. I dodge this all the time as I wake up late and not knowing what to wear. I still don't have anything I think appropriate to wear, or do not know how to wear what I have. But this doesn't matter, I'll go in flannel in 90 degree heat if I can't come up with anything else.
• Facing social interaction. Everything I'm afraid and have been avoiding, I will face. They may be scary, but when I face them I'm placing hell behind me, and moving in the right direction. The valley of the shadow of death is terrifying, but it is far better than the dread life behind me.
  • Anything that I can do in person, I will.
  • I'll spend as much time out of the house as possible.
• I will walk every day, without earbuds, and think. I might cancel this on cardio days.
• I'll journal everyday; again on paper.

My goals with this:

• Attain true solitude. Being by myself is nothing; being without people in my mind is what I'm searching for. I want to have my thoughts, and God.
• Overcome hesitation to interact. I'm extremely awkward and a novice at socializing, and will probably always be so. But that shouldn't stop me from getting to where I need to go.
• Gain agency in my mind, then in my life.
  
• Establish basic habits that I can build on through life, including habits of facing work, facing socializing, and going analog instead of digital.

I've probably forgotten a thing or two, but this is close enough.

I'll update this journal on Sept. 1st and reflect on what happened.