Ah. Well I didn't mention all the benefits, but what I was referring to here were future decisions, not past ones. Decisions I had put off taking because they caused me great anxiety but that nonetheless had to be done, and the sooner the better.
Other benefits:
- Vastly improved mood
- Renewed interest in creative endeavors, specifically writing
- A sense of well-being
- A "the scales have fallen from my eyes" realization/epiphany/gnosis around the nature of reality and the effect "weaponized language delivery mechanisms" (ie, social media) have on our perception of it.
Pretty fucking worth it, if you asked me. And yet I fell off the wagon and have a smartphone again.
You are clearly better for your temporary retreat. It is still with you. Reducing contact with the world is not the only way to deal with its less helpful siren calls.
Distraction free can also mean, “free despite distraction”.
You created some very positive grooves in your thought patterns, that you can keep using, to recall and reset awareness of what matters at any moment.
10 seconds meditating on what you experienced and learned can reset a day.
Knowing and remembering the contrast is a great way to wade through the complications of life, but avoid drowning again.
A another superpower is to have clearly defined personal missions. Then continually asking “is this helping?” quickly exposes and resolves both mundane and profound derailments. Vast time can be wasted by things that are healthy, but just not the optimal path, too!
For me, the only extreme measures I take are to avoid any exposure or giving attention to advertising. And zero exposure to opinion media (whether views “lean” in a way I sympathize with or not). That stuff just constantly models a norm of sleepwalking into a flattened reality.
After that, I just pay attention unintended wasted time and course correct whenever healthy exposure to novelty flips to low quality or extended hit seeking. We do benefit from some of the former.
I was lucky to grow up without television. Nobody had to teach me the difference between influence and inspiration and I won’t ever let that get watered down.
It scares me how most people’s world views get smashed into low artificially discrete dimensions, down selected empathy and synthetically narrowed concerns, when the if, buts, mostly, sometimes, in general but often not in particular, …, nature of reality and people seems to become invisible to so many even though it isn’t hidden at all.
And I am talking about the smart high intentioned people!
It is important to remind each other to think, each for ourselves. Don’t ever categorize one’s world view as an allegiance to any school of thought, or take any of the other common steps that subtly channel our awareness away from unfiltered reality, hand us menus of default views, or numb our ability to spy the omnipresent gems of value in the most alternate views.
So thanks for posting your experience!
We can live a high contact life and benefit from the roughness and stickiness of untamed social reality, instead of being sanded down by it.
