Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] It's what you're doing when you're not doing what you need to be doing that's the problem.
[00:00:16] Good morning.
[00:00:18] Today's day five of my digital detox and it is 7.06am I feel much better right now. But when I woke up this morning I felt very groggy, very had really weird dreams, fascinating dreams. Normally I record my dreams, but because I went to bed late and I was using the Internet, I didn't put my recording device next to my bed so I couldn't easily record them.
[00:00:57] And then when I woke up because I went to bed late and used the Internet much longer than I expected, I didn't want to get up, I didn't feel clear headed. Took me a long time to get out of bed. My meditation wasn't very good.
[00:01:12] So that that extra hour and a half of oh, let me finish this thing, let me finish this thing, you know, it just screwed up my morning completely.
[00:01:23] And there's a great quote.
[00:01:26] It's what you're doing when you're not doing what you need to be doing that's the problem.
[00:01:37] It's what you're doing when you're not doing what you need to be doing that's the problem.
[00:01:43] And there's another quote that I love that's been on my email signature for about 50, 15 years.
[00:01:49] Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication by Leonardo da Vinci. The first quote's from Wyatt Woodsmore, who's a business guy.
[00:02:02] Now these two quotes together I think sum up the situation quite nicely.
[00:02:07] That clarity comes from knowing what's important and what isn't important.
[00:02:16] I normally have clarity in the morning and I write down what I need to do and I'm fairly clear about what I'm doing. But it doesn't take much for me to lose my clarity and go into an altered hypnotic state where I'm not thinking clearly. So for example, why did I go to bed late last night? And why is this stuff so annoying? Really the reason is that I'm trying to do too many things.
[00:02:46] It's what you're doing when you're not doing what you need to be doing. I'm trying to do more than one thing.
[00:02:54] And this other quote came to mind.
[00:02:57] Just because you can.
[00:02:59] What am I doing? Just because I can. Just because I can doesn't mean I should.
[00:03:05] So for example, just because I can use AI to do something in the background related to some other project just because it can do it, and just because I can press the button doesn't mean I Should.
[00:03:19] Just because I can check the news and check videos and watch movies, whatever, doesn't mean that I should.
[00:03:28] And I think that kind of sums up the situation. Just because it's there and just because it's possible doesn't mean it's a good idea.
[00:03:42] But the problem is the clarity that I have when I'm not online very quickly vanishes.
[00:03:53] And so I'm talking to you now in quite a clear state, relatively speaking.
[00:04:01] And I can write down my list of what I want to do today and I haven't done that yet. But once I turn the Internet on, I'm pretty sure even though I'm might have all kinds of good intentions, oh, I'm not going to do this. I'm going to check this. I'm going to be very disciplined.
[00:04:16] At a certain point that clarity will slip away, it will fade away and disappear.
[00:04:27] And the I need to do this, I need to check this forceful dopamine addicted thing will return.
[00:04:38] So I'm going to think about exactly what I can do to try and maintain clarity.
[00:04:44] My overall sense is I need to have very rigid, one thing at a time, only one thing at a time, and take breaks, forced breaks.
[00:04:59] So it's like, hey, here's the main, main, main thing I need to do and, and just this one thing, what I'm doing.
[00:05:07] What are you doing when you're not doing what you need to be doing this problem. So get rid of all that other stuff.
[00:05:15] And just do that one thing without anything else.
[00:05:27] And that's it.
[00:05:30] So in other words, removing things is the secret.
[00:05:38] Simplicity is about getting rid of things, simplifying, removing steps, removing extra work, removing everything.
[00:05:48] I just listened back to what I shared a moment ago as I was editing this and I notice that there's a lot of force here. I need to rigidly don't do this and only do this and get rid of this thing here and chop this thing out and force myself. It's very interesting that that even comes up.
[00:06:17] I don't know if you can relate to this, but clearly if something isn't working, something needs to be done about it being too open minded, open hearted, oh, I'll do whatever I feel like. Doesn't work either, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't need to do this.
[00:06:38] But I'm gonna also think about like, what does it look like to gracefully do things?
[00:06:48] Because I don't really like force, I don't really like rules and rigid stuff. It's just that being too free spirited and doing whatever I feel like doesn't work either.
[00:06:58] So something needs to be done. But also I don't want it to feel harsh because it feels harsh when I'm trying to get force, force, finish, finish, finish, finish. That's a harsh energy. And then now the other side is stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it is another harsh energy.
[00:07:15] So I'm really going to look into this a little bit more.
[00:07:18] What is actually going on. The whole point of this is to find out what is really going on underneath all these things that is causing the underlying issues.
[00:07:27] Because I can block everything and I can do all these things for a certain amount of time. But end of the day I can't always be in a controlled environment. And so I have to make a deeper change internally for this to really last long term.
[00:07:46] So anyway, I'm going to think about this. Some of these sessions I'm going to do these little voice notes I'm going to do afterwards and some of them I'm going to do beforehand. This, this is like a beginning of the day and I'll check in with you what actually happens. I try and take some of the day off on Thursday. So I'm going to do as little as I can and figure out the most valuable things.
[00:08:11] Ah, gosh, I hope you're doing all right. Thank you for listening. Thank you for holding me accountable. And hopefully you're learning something not just about my, my psychology personally, but something about the, the human psychology overall. Because I kind of feel I'm probably not alone in going into these altered states and losing clarity, trying to do too many things.
[00:08:37] You know, I imagine if you're listening to this, you probably can see patterns that are obvious to you, but probably not obvious to me. I think that's one of the issues is that I can actually have fairly good clarity about my own challenges and what's going on to some degree. But only under certain circumstances.
[00:08:59] If I'm working with a client because I teach people become spiritual life coaches, meditation teachers. I mean, I'm very self aware in many ways and if I'm working with someone else, I can clearly see what's going on with them.
[00:09:15] But these patterns where the mind becomes clouded and things are not clear in the moment, that's the whole issue right there.
[00:09:25] Because it doesn't matter how clear I am right now, the only thing that really counts is whether or not I remain clear when I'm in the situation where I am using the Internet. And just to be clear, I have actually tried to remove all Internet related stuff many, many times. I even Got a fax machine at one point, you know, I'm like, that's it.
[00:09:51] But the truth is I'm running an online business. I have websites, I have emails going out, I have to check, check things. Like it's, it's, it's, it's 2026, 2027's coming up, right? So like it's not practical, it hasn't worked.
[00:10:09] So, so there's, the only solution is to figure out how to manage these things.
[00:10:16] And my prediction is this is only going to get worse and worse and worse and worse for more and more and more people.
[00:10:22] I've been aware of this for 10 years and I still haven't figured it out.
[00:10:27] I think I haven't, I think I've been in denial of how, how dangerous this actually is because of the Jekyll and Hyde type of thing. Oh, part of me is like, oh, but I like watching a movie. Oh, I like this, this and that. I like AI, I like all these things. So I. So there's a part of me that likes them and there's a part of me that the truth is they are useful. There are good movies, there is AI is useful.
[00:10:51] The Internet stuff, it has loads of good stuff in it. There's no doubt about it. And so when we're dealing with a technology that is both very, very useful and practical and very sensible and simultaneously extremely dangerous and toxic and it's the same thing.
[00:11:10] That's why this is a difficult situation to deal with.
[00:11:16] So I'm sitting out here enjoying the sun, the shadows, when I'm not consuming fantasy based intense media, which most of it is on the Internet, then things like looking at the grass blowing in the wind or looking at the shadows change or looking at these things, little clouds have just appeared in this otherwise pure blue sky. All these little things are actually delightful and beautiful. You know, little flowers that have grown.
[00:12:00] Because I'm not getting my dopamine kick from intense crazy stuff. I will admit though, I did go onto Google and ask for the news.
[00:12:13] I didn't go to the news website, but I did see the headlines and it was just terrible.
[00:12:18] You know, some person was murdered here, there's a train crash and this thing happened and this person's being sued and just the worst stuff.
[00:12:29] And I'm like, why do I even want to know that? Maybe it's to feel blessed relative to the chaos in the world. Or maybe it's because I get some dopamine kick out of being shocked. You know, I've heard the theory that when people watch the news or watch movies, the actual physical chemistry of the body becomes addicted to certain energies, right? So let's say, for example, if I watch the news or I watch movies that are triggering in a way that either makes me angry or irritated or afraid or whatever it is, there's certain chemicals that go with that. And the body can become addicted to getting those particular chemicals at a certain time of day. And so everything might be going really, really well, but there's a psychological and physical dependency on getting those chemicals again because there's a habit, you know, it becomes a repeating habit. And so that could be what it is. And the other theory I have about why I don't just spend my time offline and enjoy my life is that I almost often feel so happy and relaxed that I feel it's almost illegal and unfair that I'm having such a great life because so many people are suffering, you know, And I kind of feel in some ways maybe I should suffer a bit as well.
[00:14:06] I'm not quite sure why that would benefit anyone else.
[00:14:11] Me suffering because if I'm suffering, then I become a problem for other people.
[00:14:17] But that does come up from when I feel really, really, really good.
[00:14:22] It almost feels like I've done something that isn't allowed in our society, in our world.
[00:14:31] It's almost like genuinely happy, relaxed people are sort of somehow banished or frowned upon or something because it's so unusual in many ways.
[00:14:45] So that's, you know, this is all psychological weird stuff in the back of my head that I've been aware of many, many times. I was in Hawaii, did a 21 day digital detox. And on the third day I went to the beach in Halali and I was like, oh God, I feel so good. It should be illegal. You know, that's. It's not that it should be illegal, but like there's this weird feeling, it's a very strange sense that escaping the trap, the claws of the beast, so to speak, is somehow unacceptable. And maybe it actually in a way is unacceptable.
[00:15:23] Because the whole world is in a sense, swallowed up by all these systems.
[00:15:34] There's that example of the crabs in a bucket. If you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, you don't need to put a lid on them because when one tries to escape, the others will pull it back in again.
[00:15:51] So these are a few musings as I watch the sun and the sunlight on the beautiful trees. It makes such a nice silhouette when you look at the sun.
[00:16:06] Anyway, hope you are doing great. Hope you're finding this helpful, I plan on turning the Internet off at a very reasonable time, getting an early night, and just being grateful to. To be alive.
[00:16:26] So thank you, thank you, thank you. Lots of love, and bless it.
